Fletch, a reporter in Los Angeles for the ''Los Angeles Times'', is contacted by the executor of his late aunt's will, attorney Amanda Ray Ross. Ross informs Fletch he has inherited his aunt's 80-acre plantation, Belle Isle, in Thibodaux, Louisiana. Upon arriving, Fletch is disappointed to find the mansion terribly dilapidated, but he agrees to keep on its caretaker, Calculus Entropy. Fletch has dinner with Ross at her home, and she tells him of an anonymous $225,000 bid for Belle Isle.