Might as Well Be Dead

couldn’t!”

“If you want to keep this private, tone it down. Why couldn’t he? You could. Sauce for the goose and sauce for the gander. You are now inclined to change your mind, but you have been worked on. He hasn’t been in touch as you have, so I suppose he still thinks it. Why shouldn’t he?”

“Peter thinks I killed Mike?”

“Of course. Since he knows he didn’t. Goose is right.”

She gripped my arm with both hands. “Mr. Goodwin, I want to see him. I’ve got to see him now!”

“You will, but not where we’re going and not now. And for God’s sake don’t crumple on me at this point. Steady the nerves and stiffen the spine. You’ve got a job to do. I should have stalled and saved it for later, but you asked me.”

So when the cab stopped at the curb in front of the morgue I hadn’t briefed her, and, not caring to share it with the hackie, I told him to wait, with the suitcase as collateral, helped her out, and walked her down to the corner and back. Uncertain of the condition of her wits after the jolt I had given her, I made darned sure she had the idea before going inside.

Since I was known there, I had considered sending her in alone, but decided not to risk it. In the outer room I told the sergeant at the desk, whose name was Donovan, that my companion wanted to view the body of the woman which had been found behind a lumber pile. He put an eye on Mrs. Molloy.

“What’s her name?”

“Skit it. She’s a citizen and pays her taxes.”

He shook his head. “It’s a rule, Goodwin, and you know it. Give me a name.”

“Mrs. Alice Bolt, Churchill Hotel.”

“Okay. Who does she think it is?”

But that, as I knew, was not a rule, so I didn’t oblige. After a brief wait an attendant who was new to me took us through the gate and along the corridor to the same room where Wolfe had once placed two old dinars on the eyes of Marko Vukcic’s corpse. Another corpse was now stretched out on the long table under the strong light, with its lower two-thirds covered with a sheet. At the head an assistant medical examiner whom I had met before was busy with tools. As we approached he told me hello, suspended operations, and backed up a step. Selma had her fingers around my arm, not for support, but as part of the program. The head of the object was on its side, and Selma stooped for a good view at a distance of twenty inches. In four seconds she straightened up and squeezed my arm, two little squeezes.

“No,” she said.

It wasn’t in the script that she was to hang onto my arm during our exit, but she did, out to the corridor and all the way to the gate and on through. In the outer corridor I broke contact to cross to the desk and tell Donovan that Mrs. Bolt had made no identification, and he said that was too bad.

On the sidewalk I stopped her before we got in earshot of the hackie and asked, “How sure are you?”

“I’m positive,” she said. “It’s her.”

Crossing town on 34th Street can be a crawl, but not at that time of day. Selma leaned back with her eyes closed all the way. She had had three severe bumps within the hour: learning that her P.H. thought she had killed her husband, taking it that he hadn’t, and viewing a corpse. She could use a recess.

So when we arrived at the old brownstone I took her up the stoop and in, told her to follow me, and, with the suitcase, mounted one flight to the South Room. It was too late for sunshine, but it’s a nice room even without it. I turned on the lights, put the suitcase on the rack, and went to the bathroom to check towels and soap and glasses. She sank into a chair. I told her about the two phones, house and outside, said Fritz would be up with a tray, and left her.

Wolfe was in the dining room, staving off starvation, with Saul Panzer doing likewise, and Fritz was standing there.

“We have a house guest,” I told them. “Mrs. Molloy. With luggage. I showed her how to bolt the door. She doesn’t feel like eating with people, so I suppose she’ll have to get a tray.”

They discussed it. The dinner dish was braised pork filets with spiced wine, and they hoped she would like it. If she didn’t, what? It was eight o’clock, and I was hungry, so I left it to them and went to the kitchen and dished up a plate for myself. By the time I returned the tray problem had been solved, and I took my place, picked up my knife and fork, and cut into a filet.

I spoke. “I was just thinking, as I dished this pork, about the best diet for a ballplayer. I suppose it depends on the player. Take a guy like Campanella, who probably has to regulate his intake-”

“Confound you, Archie.”

“What?” I raised my brows. “No business talk at the table is your rule, not mine. But to change the subject, just for conversation, the study of the human face under stress is absolutely fascinating. Take, for instance, a woman’s face I was studying just half an hour ago. She was looking at a corpse and recognizing it as having belonged to a person she knew, but she didn’t want two bystanders to know that she recognized it. She wanted to keep her face deadpan, but under the circumstances it was difficult.

“That must have been interesting,” Saul said. “You say she recognized it?”

“Oh, sure, no question about it. But you gentlemen continue the conversation. I’m hungry.” I forked a bite of filet to my mouth.

It was a tough day for rules. Still another one got a dent when, the dessert having been disposed of, we went to the office for coffee, but that happened fairly often.

I reported, in detail as usual, but not in full. Certain passages of my talk with Mrs. Molloy were not material, and neither was the fact that she had started to put out a hand to me and jerked it back. We discussed