Death of a Doxy (Crime Line)

I told him he was just blowing, I had yet to see him scared, forked a bite of cake and molasses, and Creole sausage, and started the Times piece again. I knew a lot more than it did, which suited me fine. The only items that were news to me were that the body had been discovered by Isabel Kerr's sister Stella, that Stella was the wife of Barry Fleming, who taught mathematics at the Henry Hudson High School, that Stella had gone to the apartment a little before seven o'clock Saturday evening – less than three hours after I left – that tentatively Isabel had died between eight o'clock and noon, that Stella wouldn't talk to reporters, and that the police and the District Attorney's office had begun a thorough investigation. The picture of Isabel had probably been dug up in the files of a theatrical agent; she had a chorus-girl smile. The one of Stella had been snapped as a cop had escorted her across the sidewalk.

So far, so good. But if the errand I had tackled for Orrie had been on the level, if he hadn't been playing me, and I didn't really think he had, there would be fur flying soon, and when I finished breakfast and went into the office I turned the radio on. Ten-o'clock news, nothing. When Wolfe came down from the plant rooms at eleven o'clock the radio was still on, and when he had crossed to his desk and settled his bulk in the only chair that holds it to suit him, he scowled at the radio and then at me and demanded, "Is there an urgency?"

"Yes, sir," I said. "Will the Braves play in Milwaukee or in Atlanta? Also it's Sunday, the day of rest."

"I thought you had an engagement."

"It's for one o'clock, and I may skip it. The lunch will be all right, but then a man is going to read poetry."

"Whose poetry?"

"His."

"Pfui."

"Sure. I think Miss Rowan knew he was hungry and merely wanted to feed him, but then he said he would do her and her friends a big favor and she was stuck. He calls it an epithon because it's an epic and it takes hours."

A corner of his mouth was up an eight of an inch. "Serves you right."

"Yeah. What she did in the car that night was in the line of duty, but you'll never forgive her. I may not go."

He flipped a hand. "You will." He went at his copy of the Sunday Times. We get three, a total of twenty pounds – one for him, one for me, and one for Fritz.