Fletch's Fortune Part 35

Jake Williams yelled, "Junior!"

Junior rolled as he fell.

Landing on his back on the flagstones, the two splotches of blood, on his neck and on his shirt, were clearly visible.

Helena was kneeling over him.

Even over the sound of the helicopter, Fletch could hear Jake Williams shout, "Someone is trying to kill the Vice-President!"

One of the four men with the Vice-President spun him around, toward the hotel.

The other three surrounded him closely.

One held his hand out behind the Vice-President's head, as if to shield him from the sun.

They pushed him through the crowd into the hotel.

Crystal Faoni had joined Helena Williams in kneeling over Junior.

Crystal was trying to blow air into Junior's mouth.

The helicopter had settled on the lawn, and its door was opening.

Fletch looked across the lawn, and ran his eyes as closely as he could along the line of trees.

Men in Marine Corps uniform were getting off the helicopter.

At first, Fletch moved very slowly, backing away from the crowd, turning, jumping off the terrace, ambling across the lawn.

He did not break into a full run for the stables until he was well-concealed by the trees.

Thirty-five.

Fletch had no plan.

He could find no one at the stables, so he saddled the horse he had used twice before, fumbling, as he hadn't saddled a horse himself in a long time, alarming the horse with his haste.

Once clear of the paddock area, he laid the whip on her and she poured on speed, but only for a very few moments.

She was a pleasant horse, but not too swift.

Clearly, in all her days on Hendricks Plantation, she had never been asked to be in a sincere hurry.

By the time they had climbed the ridge and were approaching the camper along the timber road she was winded and resentful.

Fletch left her in the deep shade of the woods about twenty meters up the hillside from the camper.

He still had no plan.

The camper was open, but the keys weren't in the ignition.

He looked for the keys under the driver's seat, over the visor, in the map compartment, then, hurrying, moved back into the camper, flipping over the mattress of the unmade bed, glancing in the cabinets, the oven, under the seat cushions of the two chairs.

He went through the pockets of a dark suit hanging from a curtain rod.

On a shelf was an old cigar box. Inside were screws, nails, a few sockets for a wrench, half a pouch of Bull Durham tobacco, and a set of keys, somewhat rusted.

He tried the keys in the ignition.

The third key on the chain fit.

He left it in the ignition.

Standing by the camper, he realized he still didn't have a plan.

From down the road, around the bend, he heard someone cough.

Mentally, Fletch thanked his horse, up in the woods, for being quiet.

Fletch flattened himself against the wall of the camper, next to the rear wheels.

He stuck his head out for a look only once.

Joseph Molinaro was walking toward the camper, ten meters away, a rifle under his right arm.

It had not occurred to Fletch before this that, of course, Joseph Molinaro would be carrying a rifle.

He had not thought to arm himself.

There was no time to go back into the camper.

The few branches and stones in the road at his feet were too small and light to make good weapons.

He had no more time to think.

Fletch had left the camper through the driver's door.

Molinaro was at the back of the camper, heading for the door near the right rear wheels.

Crouching, looking under the camper, Fletch watched Molinaro's feet.

As soon as Molinaro was on the other side of the camper, Fletch moved around to its rear and along its wall.

Just as Molinaro was beginning to climb the three steps into the camper, beginning to bend to go through the door, Fletch hit him on the back of his head, hard, with the side of his hand.

The force of the blow knocked Molinaro's head against the solid door frame.

Instinctively tightening his arm over the rifle, Molinaro fell up the steps, half-in and half-out of the camper.

He rolled over.

His eyes remained open only a second or two.

He appeared to recognize Fletch.

Having already been unconscious once that morning, Molinaro's head settled back on the camper's floor, and he went deeply unconscious.

Fletch took the rifle from under his arm and slid it along the floor of the camper, toward the front.

Picking up Molinaro's legs, Fletch slid his back along the linoleum floor until Molinaro was entirely aboard the camper and the door could be closed.

Fletch climbed the steps to the camper and stepped over Molinaro.

He tore two strips from the bed sheet and tied Molinaro's ankles together.

Then he tied his wrists together, in front of him.

He slammed the back door of the camper, climbed into the driver's seat, and turned the key in the ignition.

The battery was dead.

Incredulous, Fletch senselessly tried the key three or four times.

He groaned.

Molinaro couldn't do anything right.

He had come to Virginia to meet his father.

Never did meet him.

That morning he had gotten up, flicked a cigarette into a stranger's face, and instantly was knocked unconscious.

Then he had let two people know who he was and why he was there.

If the suit hanging from the curtain rod was any indication, Joseph Molinaro actually had gone to Walter March's Memorial Service.

Next, using that rifle on the floor with telescopic sights, he had murdered his half brother.

He had ambled back to his camper, not even having thrown the murder weapon away, never thinking someone who had figured out what he had done might be waiting for him.

And the battery of his getaway vehicle was dead.

Looking at the man, with the tight, curly gray hair, dressed in the blue jeans jacket, unconscious and bound on the floor of the camper, Fletch shook his head.

Then he climbed the hillside and got his horse.

"I see you figured it out just a little faster than I did."

Before leaving the timber road, Fletch met Frank Gillis heading for the camper.

Gillis' horse looked exhausted.

Gillis nodded at Molinaro slung over the saddle of Fletch's horse.

"Is he dead, or just unconscious?"

"Unconscious."

Gillis said, "He seems to spend a lot of time in that condition."

"Poor son of a b.i.t.c.h."

Walking the horse, Fletch held the reins in his right hand, the rifle in his left.

He asked, "Junior dead?"

"Yeah."

Fletch left the road and started through the woods, down the hillside.

Gillis said, "You sure that's the murder weapon?"

"As sure as I can be, without a ballistics test. It's the weapon he was carrying when he returned to the camper."

Remaining on his horse, Gillis followed Fletch through the woods to the pasture and then rode along beside him.

Fletch said, "I wonder if you'd mind putting Molinaro on your horse?"

"Why?"

"I feel silly. I feel like I'm walking into Dodge City."

"So why should I feel silly?"

Frank Gillis chuckled.

"One of us has to feel silly, and you're the one who caught him," Gillis said.

"Thanks."

"Why didn't you use the camper?"