Flynn's In by Gregory McDonald Read Free Book Online

Huttenbach was murdered here, at The Rod and Gun Club. And you boys truly don’t know who murdered him, or why. But you care less about that than you do about something else. So in the dead of night, Wahler and Taylor and I don’t yet know who else, move his body off the property, outside the fence, down to Timberbreak Lodge. And you move his belongings into Timberbreak Lodge and scatter them about with the precision of a computer. And you get Carl Morris, for a decent amount of change, I expect, to agree that Huttenbach was staying at Timberbreak Lodge for the weekend. And that he was killed there. Then you arrange to have me come up, pretend I’m registered at Timberbreak Lodge itself, to give some big-city authority to the paid-for findings of the Chief of Bellingham’s Road Department. And in what coin of what realm do you expect to pay me?” Flynn sat back in his chair. “All you’re concerned about is keeping The Rod and Gun Club out of it.”
    Rutledge stood up and went into his bedroom. He returned with a shotgun.
    From a bookcase, he took two rags and a can of gun oil.
    “You’re every bit the man I thought you were, Flynn.”
    Rutledge sat down, broke open the gun, and checked to see the barrels were empty. Then he began cleaning it.
    Rutledge laughed. “Don’t know what we would have done, if you’d come back from Timberbreak Lodge having believed—or saying you believed—all our arranged evidence. Then we would have had a problem.” He ran an index finger along the oiled barrel, apparently just for the pleasure of it. “Wahler will take you downstairs in a few minutes to show you where Huttenbach was murdered.”
    “In the middle of the night,” Wahler stated, “it isn’t easy to arrange anything that would even fit into the category of a hunting accident.”
    “You’d be surprised, Flynn”—Rutledge squinted down one barrel, then another—“if you knew some of the names who approved of our midnight decision, however faulty it appears to you.”
    “Faulty and criminal,” said Flynn.
    “Criminal,” Rutledge said easily. “Yes.”
    “Governor Caxton Wheeler,” Flynn said, “was departing as we were arriving. At dawn.”
    “God!” Wahler grinned. “His valet-bodyguard-driver! It’s impossible to get him to move! They call him Flash because he’s so incredibly slow!”
    “Is he someone else who helped move the body?” Flynn asked.
    Waher said, “Yes.”
    “Walter March took off in a helicopter a couple of hours ago.”
    “Yes, he did,” said Rutledge. “Our members have to keep to their own schedules.”
    “And,” said Flynn, “I don’t know what the hell I’m doing sitting here, letting you clean that shotgun before my very eyes!”
    “You’re being understanding, Flynn,” said Rutledge evenly.
    “Understanding, am I? A less phlegmatic man might be having apoplexy! You know I have no power in this jurisdiction to make arrests!”
    Wahler said, “We know.”
    “Huttenbach’s father was an old friend,” said Rutledge. “From schooldays. His father was a founder of The Rod and Gun Club. I knew him, too.”
    “And when young Huttenbach wanted to run for Congress…?”
    “Some of us here at The Rod and Gun Club have been advising him all along. Actually, since before he started school.”
    “Grooming him, you mean,” said Flynn.
    “Advising him to make the most of his opportunities,”amended Rutledge. “Dwight had a brilliant future.” Rutledge tested the pull on the shotgun’s triggers. “It may not seem it to you at the moment, Flynn, moving his body in the middle of the night and so on, building a stage set, as you call it, but we’re deeply concerned about Dwight’s murder.” Rutledge snapped the shotgun closed. “We want it investigated. We want to know who did this and why.”
    Rutledge leaned the shotgun against his chair.
    Flynn rubbed his forehead. “You want me to run a private investigation.”
    Rutledge said, “You, got it.”
    “And