pause, “if, hypothetically, someone gained access to premises under conditions that might be considered breaking and entering, wouldn’t he be foolish to admit that to the FBI?”
“Jesus, Matty, what the hell were you doing?” Coughlin said.
“Why would this hypothetical person we’re talking about, Payne,” Davis asked, “break into this hypothetical other person’s hotel room?”
“We’re out of school, Davis, right?” Denny Coughlin came to Matt’s defense.
“Absolutely. You have my word,” Davis said.
“Watch yourself, Matt,” Wohl said, which earned him a look of gratitude from Chief Coughlin and looks of annoyance from Davis, Jernigan, and Leibowitz.
“The morning after the party, I got a call from Chad Nesbitt, who, like his wife, was under the impression that Susan Reynolds had left the party with me. They thought she had spent the night with me. I told them she hadn’t—”
“Who is this guy Nesbitt?” Jernigan asked. “This is the first time that name came up.”
“He’s in the grocery business,” Matt said.
“Matty!” Coughlin warned, and then turned to Jernigan and explained: “Nesbitt’s father is chairman of the board of Nesfoods International.”
“We have noticed that a number of these people who like to blow things up in the name of love for animals come from the, quote, better families, unquote,” Jernigan said. “Is there any chance Mr. Nesbitt might be connected with Chenowith and Company?”
“I think that’s very unlikely,” Matt said, coldly angry.
“Why?”
“Well, he’s an ex-Marine, for one thing.”
“So am I,” Leibowitz said. “But on the other hand, so was Lee Harvey Oswald.”
“I think we can safely proceed on the assumption that Mr. Nesbitt—or his wife—is not in sympathy with these people you’re looking for,” Wohl said. “Payne was telling us about his telephone call.”
“Right. So Nesbitt asked me, since I live only a couple of blocks away from the Bellvue, to go there and see what I could find out.”
“As a police officer, you mean?” Leibowitz asked. “Your friend was now concerned with the welfare of the Reynolds woman? Because she was missing?”
“He was concerned because his wife was on his back about her friend,” Matt said. “And I went to the Bellvue as a civilian. Not as a police officer.”
“And while you were there, you somehow found yourself in her hotel room?” Leibowitz asked.
“I didn’t say that,” Matt said.
“Payne, we’re all on the same side here,” Davis said.
“Hypothetically, Matt, how could someone gain access to her hotel room?” Wohl asked.
“Hypothetically, with a master key.”
“Apropos of nothing whatever,” Wohl said, “Detective Payne recently participated in a surveillance operation at the Hotel Bellvue-Stratford.”
Leibowitz and Jernigan exchanged glances suggesting they fully understood the usefulness to a surveillance crew of a master key that might not have been acquired under innocent circumstances.
“The Reynolds girl’s bed had not been slept in?” Leibowitz asked.
Matt shook his head, “no.”
“You find out anything else that might be useful?”
“The rent-a-cop in the hotel garage said he remembered a red Porsche with a good-looking blonde in it leaving the garage about half past five the previous afternoon. Where—presuming this was in fact, Susan Reynolds; there really aren’t that many good-looking blondes in red Porsches—she was from five-thirty until she went to the Nesbitts’ at half past seven or so is anyone’s guess. I don’t know, but I’ll bet she did not put the car into the hotel garage again until a couple of hours after I was there.”
“Why did Mrs. Nesbitt tell the suspect’s mother the suspect had left with you?” Jernigan asked.
“I think she thought at the time that she had.”
“You were friendly with her at the party?”
“I tried to be. She was not interested.”
“Pity,” Jernigan said.
“Do you think you could change that situation?” Davis asked.
“What do you mean by that?” Matt asked.
“I mean get close to her,” Davis said.
“What’s the opposite of her being ‘overwhelmed’ by my charms?” Matt asked.
“What are you driving at, Walter?” Chief Coughlin asked.
“Off the top of my head,” Davis said. “And I’m hearing a lot of this for the first time myself, which sometimes cuts through the fog. What I’m hearing is that the Reynolds girl is not all that close to the Nesbitts. But she goes to the Nesbitts’ party. And disappears overnight. That suggests she may have had a rendezvous with the fugitives. That suggests they may be here, or near here. Since it worked this time, they may try it again. If Detective Payne could get close . . .”
“You’re suggesting that he work with you on this?” Coughlin asked.
“You would have problems with that?”
“Frankly, Walter, I have a lot of problems with it,”