Please Pass the Guilt

16

That afternoon Orrie and I had a two-piece argument, first on the phone and then face-to-face. Around three o’clock he called to say he would be working the whole weekend because he was taking a female CAN researcher to Atlantic City. I asked if he wished to leave a message for Jill, his wife, in case she called, and he said she was in Tokyo, which was plausible since she was an airline hostess. I said he would be paid to six P.M. Friday, and he said he would come and discuss it. He came a little after four, knowing that Wolfe would be up in the plant rooms, and said it would be a working weekend and he should also get twenty cents a mile for the use of his car; he might get something useful from her and he was certainly going to try. I said okay, eight hours Saturday and eight Sunday, he couldn’t expect to be paid for the time he spent in bed, and he said bed was the best place to get really confidential, and I had to agree. But not eight dollars an hour for fifty-two hours, and not the hotel bill. He said Mrs. Odell had a billion, and I said not more than a hundred million even with inflation, and we should leave her something for groceries. We finally settled on a lump sum to cover everything, $364.00, which was seven dollars an hour. I may as well mention now that the client got exactly nothing for that little expense item.

By eleven o’clock Saturday morning, when Helen Lugos came, Fred had also drawn a blank. He had talked with five city employees he knew, one of them a sergeant in Homicide, and none of them had had any contact with Dennis Copes or had any information about him. He doubted if any of them knew about the LSD, but of course they might be keeping the lid on. He was proceeding.

Saul had collected a bag of facts about Copes — where and how he lived, his habits, his friends, his background, his personal finances — but nothing that gave us any pointers, so they wouldn’t give you any either, and I’ll skip them. He had found no connection whatever with Mrs. Odell or Charlotte Haber, but was preparing an approach to Charlotte’s kid brother, since there had been a hint that it was on account of him that she had known how to get the LSD.

Helen Lugos not only wasn’t late this time, she was ten minutes early, so she was stuck with a mere agent again until Wolfe came down from the plant rooms. She wanted to know what was so urgent that she had to change her weekend plans, and I explained that I only obeyed orders.

Wolfe entered, told me good morning first and then her, put the flowers for the day in the vase and arranged them so he would have the best view, swiveled his chair to face her, and sat.

“I don’t thank you for coming,” he said. “I’m not disposed to thank you for anything. I have reason to believe that you are withholding information that would be of value. Indeed, I think you have lied. Don’t bother to deny it. I tell you that only to establish the temper of the conversation. I’ll be trying to find support for my opinion. What will you be doing?”

She would be staring. She was staring. “I know what I ought to be doing,” she said. “Leaving. I ought to be on my way out.”

“But you’re not. You wouldn’t, even if I’m wrong, because you want to know why. That’s what makes us the unique animal, we want to know why and try to find out. We even try to discover why we want to know why, though of course we never will. It’s possible that upon consideration you have concluded, or at least suspected, that you may have made a mistake or two. For instance, nineteen days ago, a Monday evening, I asked you if you thought it likely that the person who put the bomb in the drawer was present in this room and you said you had no idea. ‘None at all,’ you said. And twelve days ago, again a Monday, when you were alone with Mr. Goodwin and he asked what you would say if he asked that question, you replied that you would say exactly the same, you had no idea. I’ll try once more. What would you say now?”

“My god,” she said. “How many times...”

“What would you say now?”

“The same!”

Wolfe nodded. “You should know, Miss Lugos, that this is being recorded electronically. The recorder is on a closet shelf in the kitchen, so that a man there can change the tape if necessary. I now have a special reason for wanting to learn beyond question the nature of your relations with Kenneth Meer. What you tell me will be tested thoroughly by wide inquiry. So?”

“It has already been tested by the police.” Her chin was up and a muscle in the side of her neck was twitching, barely perceptible even by good eyes. “We’re not — we’re associated in our work because we have to be. Personally we don’t — we are not close.”

“But he would like to be?”

“He thinks he — yes.”

“Do you read books?”

She did what everybody does when asked an unexpected and irrelevant question. Her eyes widened and her lips parted. For two seconds exactly the same as if he had asked her if she ate cats. Then she said, “Why — yes. I read books.”

“Do you read much fiction?”

“I read some.”

“Then you may be aware that most competent storytellers, even lesser ones, have an instinctive knowledge of the possibilities of human conduct. They often present two characters who have a strong mutual attachment in secret but who have other people believing that they are hostile. But not the reverse. Not two who have a mutual animus but have others believing that they like or love each other. Storytellers know it can’t be done. So do I. I know I can’t learn if you and Mr. Meer are in fact close by asking you questions and watching your face as you answer them, so I won’t try. I know it’s futile for me to ask you anything at all, but I wanted to see you again and hear you speak, and I would like to ask one specific question, more for what the question will tell you than for what the answer will tell me. Mr. Goodwin got your detailed account of your movements on that Tuesday, May twentieth. I would like one detail of the preceding day, Monday, May nineteenth. In the early afternoon, shortly after lunch, Mr. Meer was with you in your room. Tête-à-tête. What did you talk about? What was said?”

I won’t say I actually enjoyed what happened next, but I appreciated being there to see it. Having seen him walk out on people I don’t know how many times, say a hundred, it kind of evened up to see him once as the walkee instead of the walker. She didn’t glare or clamp her jaw or spit, she just go up and went. I admit he didn’t glare or spit either; he just sat and watched her go. I did too until she was out; then I stepped to the hall to see that she shut the front door. When I stepped back in, he was opening the drawer to get the bottle opener — so he had rung for beer.

“Tell me once more,” I said, “that I understand women better than you do. It gives me confidence. But don’t ask me to prove it. I said two weeks ago that she didn’t open the bag and shake it. I also said she didn’t plant the bomb, but now I don’t know. Did Copes strikingly suggest that she did?”

“Confound Copes,” he growled. “And nothing can be expected from Saul or Fred during the weekend.”

He picked up the top item on the stack of the morning mail. It was a check from Mrs. Odell for $65,000.