Fletch Won Read Online Free PDF

distinctly. “What is your assignment?”
    “I am newly assigned to Society.”
    “Society.” Biff’s face expressed the contempt he had for society writers. “What are you doing here?”
    “Here?”
    “Here. At the home of Donald Edwin Habeck.”
    “Swimming, sir.”
    Biff exploded at Gomez. “He’s swimming bare-assed!”
    Fletch said, “I was assigned to interview Donald Habeck at ten o’clock this morning regarding the five million dollars he and his wife had decided to donate to the art museum.”
    “But you knew Donald Habeck was dead! I saw you in the parking lot!”
    Fletch shrugged. “Obstacles are encountered in doing any story.”
    As if personally offended, Biff shouted at the sky, “He’s swimming bare-assed in the murder victim’s pool!”
    Lieutenant Gomez stepped closer to the pool edge. “What have you done since you’ve been here?”
    “I interviewed, I tried to interview, Mrs. Habeck.”
    The eyes of both men widened.
    “Did you see Mrs. Habeck?” Gomez asked.
    “Yes.”
    “Tell us about Mrs. Habeck,” Biff said. “What does she look like?”
    “About sixty. Blue hair. Red dress. Green sneakers. A sort of weird lady.”
    Biff and Gomez looked at each other.
    “Son,” Biff said with heavy patience, “what are you doing swimming bare-assed in Habeck’s pool two hours after Habeck was murdered?”
    “I didn’t smell so good, my clothes—”
    “What?” said Gomez.
    “Yeah, see, I got held up by this liquor store on my way here, I got bourbon splashed all over me, I was really reeking of the stuff—”
    Biff stepped on Fleteh’s hand on the pool ledge.
    “Ow.” Fletch went entirely underwater a moment and rubbed his hand.
    When he resurfaced, Biff and Gomez were still there, staring down at him.
    Fletch placed his left hand in a pool drain.
    He asked, “What’s the matter with you guys?”
    “Oh, nothing,” Biff answered. “We should have expected to find a reporter from the
News-Tribune
swimming bare-assed in the murder victim’s pool two hours after his death.”
    Fletch asked, “Isn’t that what society writers do?”
    “Probably,” answered Biff. “I wouldn’t know.”
    “Where are your clothes?” Gomez asked.
    “Mrs. Habeck took them.”
    “ ‘Mrs. Habeck took them,’ ” Biff repeated. He sighed.
    “Where is she?” Fletch asked. “Didn’t she let you in the house?”
    “The cook let us into the house,” Gomez said. He added, “She had just returned that moment from grocery shopping.”
    “You haven’t talked to Mrs. Habeck?”
    “Mrs. Habeck isn’t here,” Gomez said.
    “She isn’t? Where are my clothes?”
    “I think that’s something we’d all like to know,” Gomez answered.
    “She couldn’t have left with my clothes,” Fletch said.
    “Maybe this Mrs. Habeck wanted to make another donation to a museum.” Biff chuckled. “An example of late-twentieth-century bummery costumery.”
    Gomez laughed.
    “I didn’t get much out of her anyway,” Fletch said.
    “Oh, you didn’t,” said Biff. “She got your clothes off you.”
    “Frankly, she seemed a little off-the-wall. Weird, you know what I mean?”
    “Weird, uh? She got your clothes off you and disappeared with them, and you say
she’s
weird?”
    “Come on, Biff,” Fletch said.
    Down the grassy slope Fletch saw the gardener’s sombrero rise, move a few meters, and lower from sight again.
    Biff said, “You’re not supposed to be here, and you know it.”
    “There’s still the story of the donation, Biff. What happens to it now?”
    “Your name is Fletcher?” Biff confirmed.
    “Spelled with an
F.”
    “Get out of my face, Fletcher. Get out of it, and stay out of it.”
    Dripping and naked, Fletch stood over the gardener. “Any idea where I can get a towel?”
    The gardener looked up at him. His face was younger than Fletch had expected.
    Slowly the gardener stood up. He took off his denim shirt and handed it to Fletch.
    “Gee, thanks. I really mean it. Those