Fletch's Fortune Part 20

"Mister Wisham, I.... I'll ask the questions."

"Have you ever seen me on television?"

"Of course."

"Often?"

"Yes, I guess so. My working hours.... I don't have any regular television-viewing hours."

"What do you think of me? What do you think of my work?"

"Well. I'm not a journalist."

"I don't work for journalists. I work for people. You're a people."

"I'm not a critic."

"I don't work for critics, either."

"I find your work very good."

"'Very good'?"

"Well, I haven't made a study of it, of course. Somehow or other I never thought I'd be asked by Rolly Wisham what I think of his television reporting. Mostly, of course, I look at the sports...."

"Nevertheless. Tell me what you think of my work."

"I think it's very good. I like it. What you do is different from what the others do. Let me see. I have more of a sense of people from your stories. You don't just sit back in a studio and report something. You're in your shirtsleeves, and you're in the street. Whatever you're talking about, dope addicts, petty criminals, you make us see them as people-with their own problems, and fears. I don't know how to judge it as journalism...."

"I wish you were a critic. You just gave me a good review."

"Well, I have no way to judge such things."

"Next question is...."

"No more questions, Mister Wisham."

"If I'm good enough at my job to please you, the network, and a h.e.l.l of a lot of viewers-how come Walter March was out to screw me?"

"That's a question."

"Got an answer?"

"No. But I've got some questions."

"I'm asking them for you."

"Okay, Mister Wisham. You're more experienced at asking questions than I am. I've got the point."

"That's not the point. I'm not trying to put you down, Captain Neale. I'm trying to tell you something."

"What? What are you trying to tell me?"

"You look at television. There are a lot of television reporters. Most of us have our own style. What's the difference between me and the others? I'm younger than most of them. My hair is a little longer. I don't work in a studio in a jacket and tie. My reports are usually feature stories. They're supposed to be softer than so-called hard news. Most of my stories have to do with people's att.i.tudes, and feelings, more than just hard facts. That's my job, and you just said I do it pretty well."

"Mister Wisham...."

"So, why me? Why would Walter March, or anyone else, raise a national campaign to get me off the air?"

"Okay, Mister Wisham. Rolly. You asked the question. You could wear an elephant down to a mouse."

"Because he was afraid of me."

"Walter March? Afraid of you?"

"I was becoming an enormous threat to him."

"Ah.... Someone told me last night-I think it was that Nettie Horn woman-all you journalists have ident.i.ty problems. 'Delusions of grandeur,' she said. Rolly, a few minutes of network television time a week-I mean, against Walter March and all those newspapers coast-to-coast, coming out every day, edition after edition...."

"Potentially I was an enormous threat to him."

"Okay, Rolly. I'm supposed to ask 'Why?' now. Is that right?"

"I've been trying to tell you something."

"Okay."

"I have more reason to murder that b.a.s.t.a.r.d than anyone you can think of."

"Uh...."

"Don't tell me I need a lawyer. I know my rights. I came to this convention because the network forced me to. I came with such hatred for that b.a.s.t.a.r.d.... Frankly, I was afraid to cross his path, to see him, or even hear him, or be in a room with him-for fear of what I might do to him."

"Wait."

"My Dad owned a newspaper in Denver. I was brought up skiing, horsing around, loving journalism, my Dad, happy to be the son of a newspaper publisher. Once a newspaper starts to decline in popularity, it's almost impossible to reverse the trend. I didn't know it, but when I was about ten, Dad's newspaper began to go into a decline. By the time I was fourteen, he had mortgaged everything, including his desk, G.o.dd.a.m.n it, the desk he had inherited from his father, to keep the paper running. These were straight bank loans-but unfortunately Dad had made the mistake of using only one bank. He wasn't the sharpest businessman in the world."

"Neither am I. I...."

"Just when Dad thought he was turning the paper around-it had taken five years-this one bank called all the loans."

"Could they do that? I mean, legally?"

"Sure. Dad never thought they would. They were friends. He went to see them. They wouldn't even speak to him. They called all the loans at once, and that was it."

"I don't get it."

"Neither did Dad. Why would the bank want to take over a newspaper, especially when there was hope for its doing well? They wouldn't know how to run it. Dad lost the newspaper. He gave up as decently as he could. He wandered around the house for weeks, trying to figure out what had happened. I was fifteen. There was a rumor around that the bank had sold the newspaper to Walter March, of March Newspapers."

"Okay, it seems like an ordinary...."

"Not a bit ordinary. These bankers were old friends of my father. Huntin', fishin', cussin' and drinkin' friends."

"He was hurt."

"He was curious. He was also a h.e.l.l of a journalist. In time, he found out what happened. People always talk. Walter March had bought up Dad's loans, lock, stock, and barrel-to get control of the newspaper."

"Why did the bankers let him? They were friends...."

"Blackmail, Captain Neale. Sheer, unadulterated blackmail. He had blackmailed the bankers, individually, as persons. So far, in your twenty-four hours of investigation, have you heard about Walter March and his flotilla of private detectives?"

"I've heard rumors."

"When I was sixteen, Dad died of a gunshot wound, in the temple, fired at close range."

The recording tape reel revolved three times before Rolly Wisham said, "I never could understand why Dad didn't shoot Walter March instead."

"Mister Wisham, I really think you should have a lawyer present...."

"No lawyer."

Captain Neale sighed audibly. "Where were you at eight o'clock Monday morning?"

"I had driven into Hendricks to get the newspapers and have breakfast in a drugstore, or whatever I could find."

"You have a car here?"

"A rented car."

"You could have had breakfast and gotten your newspapers here at the hotel."

"I wanted to get out of the hotel. Night before, I had seen Walter March with Jake Williams in the elevator. They were laughing. Something about the President and golf ... catfish. I hadn't slept all night."

"Did you drive into Hendricks alone?"

"Yes."

"Okay, Mister Wisham, I don't see any problem. Your face is famous. We can just ask people down in the village. I'm sure they saw you, and recognized you. Where did you have breakfast?"

"I never got out of the car, Captain Neale."

"What?"

"I did not have breakfast, and did not buy newspapers. At least, not until I got back to the hotel."

"Oh, Lord."

"I changed my mind. I drove through that shopping center and said, to h.e.l.l with it. It was a beautiful morning and the shopping center looked so sterile. Also, of course, I'm forever making simple little plans like going to a drugstore for breakfast-I like people, you know? I like being with people-and I get right up to it, and I realize everybody will recognize me, and giggle, and shake hands, and ask for autographs. I'm not keen on that part of my life."

"Are you saying that no one saw you Monday morning?"

"I guess I prevented anyone from seeing me. I wore sungla.s.ses. I drove around. Over the hills. Maybe I was trying to talk myself out of murdering Walter March."

"What time did you leave the hotel?"

"About seven-fifteen."

"What time did you get back?"

"About nine. I had breakfast in the coffee shop here. I didn't hear about Walter March's murder until later. Ten-thirty. Eleven."

"Okay, Mister Wisham. You say Walter March was smearing you, trying to destroy you...."

"Not 'trying to,' Captain Neale. He was going to. There is no doubt in my mind he would have succeeded."

"... because you were becoming a potential threat to him."

"Don't you agree? I could never be as powerful as Walter March. We lost the only newspaper we had. But I have been becoming an increasingly powerful and respected journalist. I'm only twenty-eight, Captain Neale. I have a lot to say, and a forum for saying it. Even having me at this convention, telling people what I know about Walter March, was a threat to him. You've got to admit, I was more a threat to him as a halfway decent and important journalist than if I had become a skiing instructor in Aspen."

"I guess so. Tell me, Mister Wisham, do you happen to know what suite the March family were in?"

"Suite 3."

"How did you know that?"

"I checked. I wanted to avoid any area in which Walter March might be."

"You checked at the desk?"

"Yup. Which gave me an opportunity to steal the scissors. Right?"

"You're being very open with me, Mister Wisham."

"I'm a very open guy. Anyhow, you strike me as a pretty good cop. There's a lot of pressure on this case. Sooner or later, you'd discover Walter March drove my Dad to suicide. Everyone in Denver knows it, and probably half the people here at the convention do. Concealing evidence against myself would just waste your time, and leave me hung up."

"It's almost as if you were daring me, Mister Wisham."

"I am daring you, Captain Neale. I've worked a lot with cops. I'm daring you to be on my side, and to believe I didn't kill Walter March."

Twenty.

3:30 P.M P.M.COMPUTERS AND L LABOR U UNIONS.