The Right Jack

'The hospital won't give me any details over the telephone,' moaned Molly. 'I guess I could have gone down, but if she was unconscious, that wouldn't do her any good, would it? And I was afraid you'd have someone there, you see, and then you'd know'

She looked at Alan Knight timidly. 'She's going to be okay, isn't she? I mean, she's not going to die or anything?'

'No,' Knight said tightly. 'They expect her to live.'

'Oh great!' she said with an exaggerated sigh of relief.

Hastily, Sigrid asked, 'Lieutenant Knight, would you ask somebody to get us something to drink? I'd like coffee. Black. Ms. Baldwin?'

'Ginger ale, please.'

Wordlessly, Knight went himself.

So much for good cop/bad cop, thought Sigrid.

By the time he returned, with their beverages on a tray and his distaste on hold, she had led Molly back over Friday night again. The girl still insisted that she hadn't particularly noticed Pernell Johnson's movements. She did, however, remember Ted Flythe's.

'He rushed around and helped change the ashtrays with the rest of us. The cut-glass ones are so much prettier, but harder to clean and with cardplayers-Mr. George has to put out fresh ones every three hours. Those people smoke like chimneys.'

Alan Knight glanced at Sigrid, who acknowledged with a slight nod how easy Flythe might have found it to switch one cribbage board while everyone else was switching hundreds of ashtrays.

'Let's move on to today,' said Sigrid. 'Several people say you spoke to Pernell Johnson at the service door shortly before the ten-thirty break.'

'That's right. I didn't know his name though. I was asking him to keep an eye on the ash stands on the landing.

Madame Ronay has a thing about dirtys and. People can be so messy. They dropc hewing gum off there, or leave candyw rappers. So I asked him to tend themd uring the break.'

'And did he?'

'I guess I forgot to look.'

'Madame Ronay stopped in at the

Bontemps Room during the break tol ook for you. She says you weren't theret hen.'

'No, I'd gone down to my office.'

'But she'd just come from there andd idn't find you.'

'We must have just missed each other. Mr. Flythe had given me the copies you wanted of the pairings and after I spoke to the busboy, I went on down the back way. I put the sheets in a folder for you, took care of some things on my desk, and then returned by the grand staircase about forty-five minutes later.'

Knight had been following her story on his sketched floor plan. 'It could have happened like that,' he said. 'As many exits and elevators and halls as this place has, you could play ring-around-the-rosy all day.'

'Madame Ronay spent some time in her office,.too,' said Sigrid 'is that near yours?'

Molly gave a feminine hoot. 'My office is in that warren back of the main desk. La R -I mean, Madame Ronay's is up on thirty, next to the boardroom. On thirty, even the broom closets are bigger than my office.'

'So from approximately ten-thirty till eleven-thirty, you were at your desk alone?'

Molly Baldwin nodded her curly brown head.

'Did you see anyone, speak to anyone along the way?'

'Gee, I don't know. You know how it is: you just nod or wave; you don't stop to talk every time. There was the desk clerk, of course, and the bell captain. There're always people coming or going.'

'In your office, too?'

'Well, no. Clerical staff don't have to work on Sundays. Just a skeleton crew down in the secretarial pool in case of emergencies. They mostly goof off or read or knit 'cause nothing ever happens on Sunday.'

'Now, Ms. Baldwin, you've told us that you did not know Pernell Johnson except by sight and only as a staff member employed here at the hotel. Is that correct?'

As Sigrid's voice became more official, Molly tensed again. 'That's right,' she said anxiously.

'We've heard that he recently moved here from Miami. That's where you're from, too, isn't it?'

'But I didn't know him,' Molly protested. ' Miami 's huge. That's like saying I ought to know you because we both live in New York.'

'So, in fact, he gave no indication that he'd ever seen you around Miami either?'

Molly Baldwin shook her head.

'Very well, Ms. Baldwin,' Sigrid concluded. 'If you'll bring me those pairings sheets, I think that'll be all for now.'

The girl looked at Alan Knight entreatingly. 'Would you tell them about me at the hospital?' she asked. 'My name, I mean, and that I'm Commander Dixon's cousin so they won't give me ah ard time about letting me see her?'

'Certainly, Ms. Baldwin,' he said formally.

'Oh, thank you,' she breathed, and slipped away to fetch the papers.

'Aren't you going to tell her?' Sigrid asked.

'Let her find it out at the hospital,' said Knight. 'Did I apologize for thinking you were callous about Commander Dixon? And Dixon 's her only relative, for God's sake.'

One of the uniformed officers whom Sigrid had instructed earlier came over with a slender young black girl in tow.

'Lieutenant Harald, this is Miss Terri Pratt, the victim's friend.'

She was a winsome child, not pretty exactly, but with a sunny intelligent charm that shone through her shock over Johnson's death. They soon learned that she was a part-time employee at the hotel and a full-time student at Hunter College. She hadn't actually dated Johnson yet, 'But we were working at it. We'd taken a couple of breaks at the same time. He was a little younger than me, but pretty sharp. Had his act together. I liked that.'

They had snatched a few minutes in passing since Friday night, she told them; had even planned to meet for lunch today; but if Pernell had known anything important about the explosion, he'd given her no indication of it.

'And he would have,' Terri Pratt assured them. 'At least I think he would. He talked about everything else that happened that night.'

At the end, Sigrid thanked her and added, 'We're very sorry about your loss, Miss Pratt.'

The girl shook her head. 'We weren't that far yet. Things were just starting between us and there was so much else we needed to do first: school, work. Pernell wanted to start a chain of small resort hotels in Florida. He'd have done it, too. He could've done anything.' Her face drooped as she spoke of what would now never be. 'He was so- ooh, I don't know. Innocent? And very, very sweet.'

Her voice shook as the finality of his death sank in.

***

In the lull after Molly Baldwin brought them the pairings sheets and went back to her work, Alan Knight suggested that they might as well grab a bite to eat while they waited for the cribbage players to regroup after their own lunch break. The hotel's coffee shop was jammed, so he and Sigrid went to the tavern across the street, where Sigrid let herself be persuaded that a large mug of rich dark ale could substitute for the pain tablets she'd forgotten to bring with her.

Sandwiches there were pricey but generous. The corned beef was sliced thinly and laid on an inch thick, the mustard was dark and spicy, the dill pickles crisp and tender.

As they ate, Alan regaled her with exaggerated tales of his upbringing in a Southern household tucked in amongst six sisters. He seemed to have decided on a big sister-kid brother scenario for their temporary partnership and Sigrid could feel herself being drawn in. His knack for instant friendship was seductive to someone who found getting past the initial barriers difficult.

Kinship was a whole different mattert hough, even this artificial kinship. Her mother possessed rafts of uncles,