Death of a Doxy

Chapter 6

Where you go to see a man in custody in Manhattan depends partly on why he’s there. It can be a precinct station, a room in the City Prison, a room in the District Attorney’s office, or the paddock. I don’t know how many cops call it the paddock, but Sergeant Purley Stebbins does. It is a bare, smelly room about twelve yards long, split along the center by a steel grill which extends from the middle of a wide wooden counter up to the ceiling, and there are a dozen or so wooden chairs strung along each side of the counter, the same kind of chairs for the visitors and visitees. Democracy.

Seated on one of the chairs on the visitors’ side at ten minutes past ten Tuesday morning, I was not chipper. I had supposed I would see Orrie in a room at the DA’s office until Parker had phoned to say it would be the City Prison, and then I had taken it for granted it would be in a room. But I had been escorted to the paddock, and there I was, with four other visitors spread along the line, the nearest one, a middle-aged fat woman with red eyes, only seven feet away. I would have liked to think they were merely showing what they thought of Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin, but I didn’t. They had decided that Orrie Cather was a murderer, though they hadn’t charged him yet, and were taking no chances. Try to make them eat it.

A door opened in the back wall, the other side of the grill and counter, and Orrie entered, cuffed, with a dick right behind. The dick steered him to a chair opposite me, watched him sit, said, “Fifteen minutes,” and went back to the wall, where another dick was standing. My eyes and Orrie’s met as well as they could through the grill. The rims of his were puffy. He had once admitted to me that he brushed his hair ten minutes every morning, but he hadn’t that morning.

“It could be bugged,” I said.

“I don’t think so,” he said. His cuffed hands were on the counter. “Too risky. Too big a stink.”

“Well, all we can do is keep it low. Parker has told you that Mr. Wolfe and Saul and Fred and I have decided that you didn’t kill her and we’re on it.”

“Yeah, I knew he’d have to. I’m not his Archie Goodwin, but even me he’d have to.”

“I prefer to regard myself as my Archie Goodwin, but we won’t go into that now. I have a couple of questions, but Parker says you wanted to see me. Well?”

“I want you to do me a favor, Archie, a big favor. I want you to see Jill Hardy and tell her—”

“I’ve already seen her. She came to the office yesterday morning, don’t interrupt, and we had a talk. I didn’t know how much you had told her about Isabel Kerr, so I—”

“I have never told her anything about Isabel Kerr. She didn’t know there was an Isabel Kerr. Goddammit, what did you tell her?”

“Same as you, nothing. Of course that’s the favor you were going to ask, and it’s already done. I told her that the cops thought you killed her, and we thought you didn’t, and we were going to investigate, and we knew nothing about Isabel Kerr. Now I have—”

“You’re wonderful, Archie. Wonderful.”

“Put it in writing and I’ll frame it. I have questions, and we haven’t much time. Have you opened up at all?”

“No. I’m a dummy.”

“Stay that way. As you know, Parker agrees. What have they got? We know they got your license and the other objects, since you didn’t get them and I didn’t, and your prints, and her diary, but is that—”

“Her diary?”

“Yeah. You didn’t know she kept one?”

“My God, no.”

“She did, and they have it, so Cramer says. He didn’t say what’s in it. Probably you are, but we want your opinion on another point: would she put his name in it? The name I had to pry out of you.”

“Oh.” He looked at it a few seconds. “I see. That might be a point. I don’t think she would. Of course she had the diary stashed, but even so I’m pretty sure she wouldn’t. She was too cagey. It’s more than just an opinion. I say no.”

I looked at my wrist. Six minutes to go. “Now the question. How many people knew about you and her?”

“Nobody.”

“Nuts. You can’t know that.”

“As far as I know, nobody. You’ve heard me blow, Archie, but you never heard me blow about her. After just a few times with her she scared me. I had had women cotton to me before, but she was hipped. I liked her all right, she was good all right, but she was hipped. After we got started we were never together anywhere except her place. She wanted it that way, and that suited me. But I completely misjudged her. I told her about meeting Jill, you know, just that I had met an airline stewardess, and then like a damn fool I thought I could ease her along to the idea that since I wasn’t her only contact she couldn’t expect to be my only contact. Then I got hipped, for the first time in my life. On Jill. And she — I’ve told you how she took it. She was absolutely going to marry me herself, for God’s sake. I told her my income was about half of what he was spending on that setup, and she said just a room and bath would do us even after the baby came. That kind of crap. I don’t for a minute believe there was going to be a baby, and even if there was, whose would it be? I’m answering your question. I told nobody about her, and I doubt if she told anyone about me.”

“But she told you about other people, didn’t she?”

“Some, yes. You know, just talk, sure.”

“Which one of them killed her? Who had a reason to?”

He nodded. “Naturally I’ve thought about it. If she ever said a single damn thing about anyone that might give a hint I can’t dig it up. I realize that there’s only one way you can spring me, and God knows I wish I could give you a steer, but I swear I can’t. Sure, she told me about people, men who made passes at her, women she liked and some she didn’t like, but I have gone over it and over it and came up with nothing. I know you have to start somewhere, and that’s the other thing, besides Jill, I wanted to tell you. The woman she liked best, and saw the most of, is a night-club singer named Julie Jaquette. Her real name is Amy Jackson. She was at the Ten Little Indians week before last and may still be there. She would probably be the best bet. Have you got anything yet? Anything at all?”

“No. Did you ever meet the sister, Stella Fleming?”

“No. Isabel talked about her. She said that when we were married not only would she be happy, her sister would be too. I was supposed to get a kick out of that, making two women happy at once.”

“You should have. Did she ever mention—” I stopped because we were about to be interrupted. The dick was coming. He touched Orrie on the shoulder, which was unnecessary, and said time was up. I raised my voice. “What’s your name?”

He looked down his nose at me. “My name?”

“Yes. Your personal name.”

“My name is William Flanagan.”

“Another William.” I rose. “I’m going to report you for brutality. Mr. Cather is merely detained as a material witness. You didn’t have to grab his shoulder.” I turned and headed for the door, and the dick who had brought me in joined me as I reached for the knob.

William Flanagan hadn’t stopped anything important; I had only been going to ask if Isabel had ever mentioned Dr. Gamm.

In the taxi, going uptown, I touched bottom. I had hoped to get some little lead out of Orrie, at least a glimmer, but as we turned west at 35th Street I realized that I was going over how he had looked and what he had said for indications about him, which was plain silly, since he was supposed to be definitely out. Of course the trouble was that the only way to get something out of your mind is to get something else in. The idea that Orrie might have conked Isabel Kerr with that ashtray had popped into my head as soon as I saw the dent in her skull, and it was going to stay there, no matter what, until I had an X or Y to substitute for Orrie; and after three days and nights there was still no X or Y anything like good enough. If you say, even so, I shouldn’t have been considering Orrie because we had barred him, you’re perfectly right but you don’t know much.

To show how I was taking it, when I entered the office I did not open the top left drawer of my desk to get the pad on which I enter items for my weekly expense account. The $3.75 cab fare would be on me. Wolfe had told us the undertaking was his, but until we brought him something he would have nothing to undertake, and he had no corner in self-esteem. Since it was only a couple of minutes past eleven, he had just come down from the plant rooms and was taking a look at the mail. When he found there was nothing interesting, no checks and no lists from orchid collectors, he pushed it aside and said good morning. I said it wasn’t, and to prove it gave him a verbatim report of my talk with Orrie, ending with the comment that he had better take on the next one himself, since I had got nowhere with the three I had tackled, Jill Hardy and the Flemings.

“Anyway,” I said, “it’s a man. I admit that Julie Jaquette would probably be too much for you, but she can wait until you have had a go at Avery Ballou.”

He frowned. “Dr. Gamm.”

I frowned back. “You can’t put it off forever. As you know, I agree with you on jobs like divorce evidence, they’re too grubby. Any job is apt to be if the main point is who has been, or is, or will be, sleeping with whom. But while it’s true that Ballou was probably not paying her rent so he could read poetry to her, that presumably sex was a factor, that’s not the main point and you can ignore it. You can pretend that he might have killed her because she snickered when he pronounced a word wrong.”

His lips were tight. He breathed three times before he said, “Very well. Bring him.”

I nodded. “Okay, but I don’t know when or how. I looked him up a little last night. He is not only president of the Federal Holding Corporation, he’s also a director of nine other big outfits. He has a house on Sixty-seventh Street, one at Rhinebeck, and one at Palm Beach. He’s fifty-six years old. He has one married son and two married daughters. I would have to call the bank to learn the size of his stack, and we don’t want to advertise that you have any curiosity about him, but it—”

“I said bring him.”

“I heard you. I am explaining that it wouldn’t be advisable to tell the receptionist at his office, and the underling she would pass me to, that a private detective named Nero Wolfe wants to consult him about a matter that is too confidential for any ears but his. Phoning would be even worse. Therefore I must arrange something, and Julie Jaquette will have to be postponed.”

He grunted. “Any word from Saul?”

“He phoned at nine o’clock. Fred was with him and they were proceeding. He’ll call around one.”

“Pfui. A prodigy on a treadmill. Take him off. Give him Miss Jaquette. He will get names from her, and Fred will help with them.” He reached for the mail. “Your notebook. This letter from that ass in Paris will have to be answered.”