“John Collins does. And from him, I’ll accept.”
Fletch returned to the living room and sat heavily on the divan. He continued to have a mild headache.
Snapping on the microphone in his hand, he leaned back and closed his eyes. He spoke slowly.
“Although it is my instinct at this point to ramble on regarding the nature of truth, particularly the illusory nature of truth, I shall do my best to confine the following remarks concerning the Alan Stanwyk Murder Mystery to facts as I now know them.
“One comment only for file, which may concern the nature of truth in general, or may, more significantly, concern the nature of facts specifically concerning Alan Stanwyk, to wit: almost every fact adequately confirmed about Alan Stanwyk has also been adequately denied.
“In the case of almost each fact, it would have been easy to accept simple confirmation from an authoritative source. Further checking, however, frequently has resulted in an equally authoritative denial of that fact.
“By now, in my investigation of Alan Stanwyk, I have talked, either in person or by telephone, with his secretary, his personal physician, his father, his wife, his father-in-law, his insurance man who is also his old college roommate. Indirectly, through a third party, I have had testimony from the man’s stockbroker. I have had corporate and personal financial views of Stanwyk, and a social view of himself and his wife. I have had a police report on him.
“To the best of my ability, I have run this investigation-in-depth on him without there being any way of his knowing he’s being investigated. I have used different names, different identities, and never have I pressed the questioning far enough for the person being questioned to be suspicious, with the exception of Jim Swarthout in Nevada, and I believe I completely cooled his suspicions. He will not report the inquiry to either Stanwyk or his family.
“The portrait of Alan Stanwyk that has emerged so far is that of a bright, healthy, energetic, ambitious man. A man solid in his community, family and business. I would even say a decent man. In fact, perhaps going a bit further than I should, a man of deep loyalties and principles.
“First, he has a clean police record, with the exceptions of a six-month-old unpaid parking ticket from the City of Los Angeles and the complaint that as a lieutenant in the Air Force he buzzed a house with a training jet in San Antonio, Texas.
“From his stockbroker, William Carmichael, we know that Alan Stanwyk is in pretty good financial condition. On paper, he may presently be worth as much as a million dollars. Eventually, because of both the nature of his employment and the nature of his marriage, he will both achieve personal wealth and share in, probably control, one of the world’s great fortunes. Even with this ultimate circumstance inevitable, and despite maintaining the highest standard of living available for his immediate family, Stanwyk has salted away over one hundred thousand dollars from salary over a very few years. The last few years, he must have been putting away twenty or twenty-five thousand dollars a year, simply because he hasn’t needed it.
‘This indicates, at least to me, that such a vice as compulsive gambling can be ruled out. The crime of embezzlement does not seem necessary. Apparently, Stanwyk is not being blackmailed.
“We have from his family physician, and others, good evidence that Stanwyk does not have a drinking problem or a drug problem. Not only is he under consistent close scrutiny by professionals and others who depend upon Stanwyk’s physical and mental performance; his way of life, his known, witnessed habits preclude his harboring such addictions. No one can play squash and tennis, sail, and especially fly experimental aircraft with reflexes and nerves shot by depressants.
“I think I can state as a fact that Alan Stanwyk drinks and smokes moderately. Period.
“For what it is worth, from what must be called a streetwalker in the town in which he is currently living, The Hills, a young girl named Roberta ‘Bobbi’ Sanders had never seen Alan Stanwyk. It might therefore be said that he is not known to have frequented, or cruised, the sexual meat market most convenient to his residence.
“This does not mean that Alan Stanwyk’s sexual activity is confined to the marital bed. There is good reason to suspect otherwise.
“However, it does indicate that Alan Stanwyk’s sexual activities are controlled in acceptable social patterns.
“His stockbroker and presumed confidant, William Carmichael, doubts strongly that Alan Stanwyk maintains an extramarital sex life. Carmichael believes such an extramarital sex life would place in jeopardy Stanwyk’s relations with his wife and thus with his father-in-law employer.
“However, without meaning to visit the sins of the wife upon the husband, I had the distinct impression that his wife, Joan Stanwyk, was perfectly willing to enjoy a sexual dalliance with this investigator. Her ardor may have been the result of tennis followed by martinis. This should be more thoroughly checked later. One expects that if a wife is playing around, a husband is, although the reverse is not always true. If the wife is playing around as openly as it seems, at least she would have little to complain about the husband’s extramarital affairs.