Son of Fletch (4 page)

Leaning from outside into the back hallway, Will wrinkled his face. “Your son, Jack?”

“You never met Jack?”

“Never knew you had a son.”

“You didn’t? Well, I’ll be a hoppy toad. I thought everybody knew my son, Jack. Who’s with you?”

“Michael.”

“Come on in, Michael.”

“Where’s Carrie?”

“Upstairs in bed.”

“Anyone else here?”

Fletch handed Will the hot coffee at the back door. “So you guys cased the place before entering. Pretty smart. I appreciate it. Come in.”

“We’ll mess up your floor.”

“It’s brick. Cleans easy.”

In the small, dark back hall the two deputies looked very large in their slickers and hats. Leaving their slickers on, they put their wet hats on the wall pegs. Removing their boots together in that small space, they looked like two bears having their first dancing lesson.

“Oops.” Will spilled some of his coffee on the floor.

In gray hunting socks they stepped into the kitchen.

Fletch handed Michael a mug of coffee.

“Thanks.”

“You’re here for the Jeep,” Fletch said.

“Yeah.” Will blew on his hot coffee before sipping it. “Sheriff said to run it over your place first.”

“These guys are here somewhere,” Michael said. “For sure.”

“The wet grass will be right slippery,” Fletch said. “Don’t try too tight a turn in that Jeep, especially in four-wheel drive, especially if you’ve got any speed up. Don’t get yourselves in too great an angle on the hillsides.”

Michael said. “You sound like my father.” At twenty-one, Michael had just been released from the Army. He had hoped for a twenty-year career, as his father had had.

“Is that bad?” Fletch asked.

Michael said, “No.” Then he laughed into his coffee cup. “Give me a break.”

“You might check the barns,” Fletch said.

Will said. “We’ll check the barns.”

Both had six-battery, head-cracking flashlights sticking out of their slickers’ pockets.

Will stared at the .38 in the waistband of Fletch’s jeans.

“There are four of these guys?” Fletch asked.

“Three,” Michael said.

“Three? The sheriff said four.”

Michael shrugged. “Maybe.”

“When did they escape?”

“Sometime during the night,” Will answered. “Probably early last night.”

“Anybody hurt?”

“I don’t think so.”

“How did they get out?”

“Don’t know,” Will answered. “It’s a maximum-security prison, isn’t it?” he asked Michael.

“I thought so. These guys are murderers.”

“Yeah.” Frowning, Will looked into his coffee cup. “We’ve been told to shoot on sight.”

“Sorry,” Fletch said. “Protect yourselves.”

Will said, “Sheriff told us to check every room in your house, Mister Fletcher. I guess even the room where Ms. Carrie’s asleep.” He looked at Fletch’s handgun again. “Idea is, they could have Ms. Carrie hostage in one room while you’re sweet-talkin’ us.”

“Me? Sweet-talk anybody?” Fletch grinned. “I understand.”

“One of us will stay downstairs while the other goes upstairs with you.” Will rinsed his empty coffee mug in the sink.

“Sure.”

“Last time I was here”—Will looked around—“we were all watchin’ Atlanta play San Francisco on your big screen.”

“I’ve never been here,” Michael said. “You got any of those Tharp paintings, Mister Fletcher?”

“No. I guess I ran the price of them up too high for me to afford ‘em.”

“Sheriff ate two full-sized pizzas while watchin’ the game,” Will said. “Supremes. Never thought anybody could do that.”

“He was nervous,” Fletch said. “He bet on San Francisco.”

Michael put mock horror on his face. “You guys were gamblin’?”

“It’s all right, Michael,” Fletch said. “It was rigged. Carrie
was working the odds. You know how diplomatic she is. The sheriff was the only one who lost.”

“He made up for it in the pizza he ate,” Will said.

Turning on and off lights again, Fletch led them from room to room on the ground floor. The deputies checked closets, bathrooms.

Fletch heard the sounds of a guitar being tuned.

They came to the study.

Under the bright lights of the study’s chandelier, on the big, blue, leather divan, sat John Fletcher Faoni.

His hair was dry and combed. He was clean shaven.

He was as clean as a fresh bar of soap.

Barefoot, he wore shorts and a T-shirt.

He was suntanned.

He looked up from the acoustic guitar he was tuning.

To the deputies following Fletch into the study, looking up, smiling, Jack said, “Ha!”

“I’ll be damned,” Fletch said. “You clean up pretty good, for a frog. Just maybe pigs can fly.” Louder, he said, “This is my son, Jack Fletcher. Deputies Will Sanborne and Michael Jackson, Jack.

Putting aside the guitar, Jack stood and shook hands with the deputies. “How’re you guys doin’?” Jack asked.

“Oh, my God,” Fletch muttered. “A Southern prince yet.”

“How come I don’t know you?” Michael asked. “We’re the same age.”

“Didn’t go to school here,” Jack answered.

“I don’t know you either,” Will said. “I’ve never seen you around.”

Jack hitched up his shorts slightly. “That’s because my daddy’s just a little bit ashamed of me.” At the word
daddy
Fletch felt like an electric shock hit his lower spine. “He took exception to my being born plumb ignorant and kept me away from him all my growin’ up years in one school after another.”

“He was raised by his mother,” Fletch said.

“Still—” Michael said.

“Who’s your mama?” Will’s question wasn’t as suspicious as it was country curious. The next question, with any pretext, would be,
She got kin around here?

“Her name’s Crystal,” Jack said. “She’s in the radio business up north.”

Jack had eliminated the pretext. His mother was a Yankee. Named Crystal.

“She’s a career woman,” Fletch said.

Will said to Fletch, “His mama got custody of him?”

Fletch said, “Yeah.”

Will shook his head sadly. Fletch remembered Will had lost custody of his two children in a divorce. His wife had claimed that because of his hours, because of the danger of his job, because he wore a gun, Will was not as appropriate a parent as she.

“How long are you goin’ to be here?” Michael asked. “You get a license, I’ll show you where some of the best fishin’ holes are.”

“I’m driving him down to the University of North Alabama in the morning,” Fletch said.

Jack threw a glance at him.

“Good,” Michael said. “You’ll be home some weekends. We’ll work something out. Call me when you know you’re comin’ home. Your daddy knows my daddy.” He looked at Jack’s narrow waist, flat stomach. “You drink beer?”

“Do fish like water?”

“What kind of beer you like?”

“The wet, cold kind.” Jack laughed.

Michael shook Jack’s hand again. “We’ll work somethin’ out.”

“I’ll stay downstairs,” Will said, “while you two check out the rooms upstairs.”

Michael said to Jack, “There are some escaped convicts around here.”

“I know.” Jack laughed. “At first I thought Daddy got the pistol out ‘cause my head was spendin’ too much time in the refrigerator.”

“He just arrived,” Fletch said. “Hungry.”

Leading Michael up the stairs, Fletch heard Will, in the study, say to Jack, “I never even noticed a picture of you in this house.”

Jack said, “Well, my mama and my daddy haven’t had anything to do with each other for a long time now. One of those things. She needed my loyalty, you know?”

Fletch waited in the front hall upstairs while Michael checked the attics, the snuggery, the other bedroom.

“Ms. Carrie in there?” Michael whispered.

“Yes.”

“I’ll just crack open the door.” He leaned into the master bedroom. After he closed the door, he grinned. “Is she dead?”

“She sleeps quietly.”

“Does she stop breathing?”

“She doesn’t work at it.”

When they went downstairs, Will asked, “Everything okay?”

“Right as a whiff of magnolia on a summer’s breeze,” Michael said.

Jack shook hands with both deputies again. “Happy hunting,” he said cheerily.

Fletch led the deputies back to the kitchen.

As they were putting on their boots, Will said, “Now, Mister Fletcher. If they’re on the farm and watching, they know we’ve been here. As we patrol the farm, we just might squeeze them into the house. You know what I mean?”

“Yes.”

“You all are probably in more danger now than if we were never here.”

“I understand.”

Michael opened the back door. It was still raining hard.

“Don’t you hesitate to use that pistol.”

Fletch thought of the charming, healthy, beautiful young man in his study. His son? “I won’t.”

“Thanks for the coffee,” Michael said.

“You all come back,” Fletch said. “You hear?”

N
ice place you
have here.” Jack cleared the coffee table of albums when he saw Fletch enter with a tray. “I could have come to the kitchen. Or wherever.”

Fletch put the tray on the coffee table. On the tray were the warm tuna fish sandwiches, a glass, and a half gallon of milk.

“I frequently eat in here.”

“How old is it?”

“The tuna fish? Probably ten, twelve years old.”

“The house.”

“Antebellum.”

“Here that means before the Civil War, not the Revolutionary War, that right?”

“The Brothers’ War,” Fletch said. “The War Between the States.” He sat in a wing chair. “You should know. You just oozed Southern like someone running for the office of county dogcatcher.”

“Not really.” Jack nearly was inhaling his sandwiches
and milk. “Just tryin’ to be nice to your friends.” Jack grinned. “His daddy knows my daddy.”

The electric shock to Fletch’s lower spine at Jack’s use of the word
daddy
was just as strong this time.

“So tell me,” Fletch asked, “whom did you attempt to murder?”

“A cop.”

“Oh, God!”

“No. A cop.”

“Son of a bitch.”

“That’s no way to speak of Crystal.”

“It’s a wonder you’re still walking around.”

“I didn’t actually kill her.”

“A lady cop?”

“I didn’t stop to ask.”

“You just
tried
to kill her.”

“I tried.”

“And what was your doubtlessly magnificent reason for this criminal behavior?”

“She was bothering a friend of mine.”

“Where was this?”

“Louisville, Kentucky.”

“What were you doing in Louisville, Kentucky?”

“Heading south.”

“Where south? Here?”

“Maybe. Nashville, anyway.”

Fletch looked at the guitar Jack had found in the guest bedroom. It had been a house present from a country music star who had needed to stay at the farm awhile. It had the star’s name on it. Since it had been left, no one had played it. The guitar had become an ornament, a prized, dusted ornament. “Are you musical?”

Jack shrugged. “We wanted to find that out.”

“Who’s ‘we’?”

“My friend and I. He plays keyboard.”

“Where is he now?”

“Kentucky state pen.”

“And how and why was this woman cop bothering your friend?”

“It had to do with the car he was driving.”

“What about it?”

“It was stolen.” Jack smiled. “A pink Cadillac convertible. Vintage.”

“Wonderful.” Fletch shook his head. “You wanted your pink Cadillac convertible before you even got to Nashville.”

“Something like that. Arriving in style.”

“Some style. So what happened?”

“I shot at her. Just to discourage her from making the arrest. Arresting my friend. I didn’t need to do anything. I wasn’t even in the car at the moment. I could have disappeared, gotten away, saved my own ass. I didn’t realize other cops had snuck up behind me. They hit me over the head. Bastards. I was convicted of the attempted murder of a police officer. Would you believe that?”

“Yes.”

“People don’t appreciate loyalty.”

“Police officers have every reason to discourage such behavior.”

“Sure. Still, it just happened. In the heat of the moment. You had to have been there.”

“No, thanks. You shot at her with what?”

“A pistol. A .32.”

“Why would you even have such a thing?”

“We had it. You know, traveling. We intended to sleep out at night.”

“You weren’t in the car, but you had the gun on you.”

“I had put it under my shirt. I was going into a store.”

“Did you intend to rob the store?”

“No. Who’d try to rob a supermarket?”

“Then why were you carrying the gun?”

“It felt good against my skin.”

“You have trouble getting it up, son?”

Jack’s eyebrows raised. “No.”

“I don’t see why you were carrying the gun.”

Jack said, “You’ve got a gun stuck into your jeans. Right now.”

“By order of the sheriff.” Fletch got up and went to the open French doors. “I’m surrounded by fugitives from justice. A least one of them, of you all, is a murderer.” He had his back to Jack. “You’re all murderers, come to think of it. Kidnapping, drugs: you’ve all taken big holes out of people’s lives. In this life, who are the bastards?”

Jack muttered, “The fathers, or the sons?”

From the window, through the rain, Fletch saw the headlights of the Jeep high on the hill, well above the gully. One of the big flashlights was piercing the dark from the passenger side of the vehicle.

“Aren’t you afraid to stand in the lit window?” Jack asked. “Under the circumstances?”

“No.” Fletch turned his back to the window.

Knees apart, arms at his sides, Jack was slouched on the divan.

Fletch said, “You have your mother’s skin.”

“Not all of it.” Jack stretched his arms. “By a dam’s site.”

“How come you’re tanned?” Fletch asked. “How long have you been in prison?”

“Five weeks. Before that I was out on bail. Just hanging around. Can’t get much of a day job when you’re out on bail on charges of attempted murder.”

“Why didn’t you come here?”