rid of after me. She’d have to take a number and wait in line.”
“You son of a bitch, you’re unbelievable,” Susan said, and laughed. “Will you?”
“Will I what?”
“Be a good guy. Go along with we were out late listening to Dixieland. I’d really appreciate it.”
“How much? What’s in it for me?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Well,” Matt said, and he heard Jason Washington’s melodious voice in his mind, “if I do this for you, it would seem only fair that you take pity on a lonely boy banished to the provinces far from home and loved ones and have dinner with me. A couple of times. Several times. I really hate to eat alone.”
“You’re serious?”
“I’m always serious.”
“But I don’t like you.”
“Then why did you stay out until the wee hours with me? Or didn’t you?”
“I don’t want to get involved with you. You understand that?”
“Women have been known, I’m told, to change their minds.”
“This one won’t.”
“Time will tell. Your choice, Susan.”
“You like having something to hold over me, don’t you?”
“Truth to tell, I find it interesting.”
“Okay,” Susan said. “If you get your kicks from something like this, okay. So long as it’s clearly understood we’re talking about dinner. Period.”
“Meaning what?”
“I’m not going to bed with you.”
“I don’t recall making the offer. And how could I hope to compare with good ol’ Whatsisname who made you forget to call Mommy? And what about ol’ Whatsisname? What are you going to tell him about us going out?”
“He’s not here. He’s out of town. That won’t be a problem.”
Casing his next bank robbery, no doubt.
“Good.”
“Don’t slip tonight, and let on that I came here,” she said, and pushed herself off the couch.
“Rest assured, my dear Susan, your deepest, darkest secrets are safe with Matt Payne. At least for the moment.”
“Inspector,” Officer Paul O’Mara announced, sticking his head in Wohl’s office door, “Detective Payne is on Three.”
“Tell him to hold on,” Wohl said.
He looked at the people in his office with him—Captains Mike Sabara and David Pekach and Lieutenant Jack Malone, with whom he had been discussing the plans for the retirement party of a Highway Patrol sergeant—shrugged his shoulders, said, “Sorry. I’ll be as short as I can,” and motioned them out of his office.
He waited until the door was closed, then picked up his telephone.
“Go ahead, Matt.”
“She just left, boss.”
“Then that was our lady friend—in your room?”
“Yes, indeed. Your timing was perfect.”
“What did she want?”
“After I talked to Jason, I called her house. She wasn’t there, but her mother invited me to dinner. And then she apparently called Susan and told her I was coming, and obviously that I’m at the Penn-Harris. So she came here to ask me to go along with the story that we were out all night in Philadelphia.”
“She gave you a reason?”
“Looked me right in the eye, with those beautiful, innocent blue eyes, and told me there is a boyfriend, no name given, of whom her parents disapprove—”
“You think she’s talking about Chenowith, or the other one? What’s his name?”
“Edgar L. Cole. No, for one thing that acne-faced scumbag is hardly her type. I think this boyfriend was invented—along with the rest of the story—after her mother called and told her to guess who’s coming to dinner.”
“Okay. Go on.”
“It was quite a story. She told me that she and the boyfriend had a fight about her going to Chad Nesbitt’s party. When she went anyway, so goes her tale, he followed her to Philadelphia. When she returned to the Bellvue, the boyfriend was waiting for her in the lobby. They went to her room, fought some more, and then made up. She implied—without any detectable embarrassment—that they sealed the peace in a carnal fashion, and were having at it with such enthusiasm that she forgot to call her mother, and then, when Mommy called, she didn’t want to play coitus interruptus by answering the phone.”
“No chance that might be true?”
“Peter, her bed was not slept in.”
The reason he knows that not only germane, but important-to-this-investigation, information, Wohl thought, resignedly, is that he went into her room. This is obviously not the time to jump on his ass for a technical illegality.
“Was she suspicious about you suddenly appearing in Harrisburg? In a cop sense, I mean?”
“At first, yeah. But I explained it.”
“You gave her the story you’re looking for hidden money? And she bought it?”
“I think so.”
“Now what happens?”
“I made a deal with her,” Matt said. “I go along with the she-was-with-me story for her parents, and she goes