'No,' I said, quite surprised.
'Didn't you see the doe eyes his wife makes at him?'
'Ah… no.'
'Even Felicia sits up and takes notice when he speaks. And his own mom looks at him about twice as much as she looks at her other son, David.'
'So, I gather you've been watching Joel pretty closely,' I said cautiously. Understatement.
'Not so much Joel himself, as the way people react to him. Except you.'
'I see that he's a man that women like to be around,' I said, by way of acknowledgment. 'But he doesn't really do anything for me. The snapdragons, I knew those were his idea, and I did tell you then that he was the kind of man who noticed women, who knew how to please them. But I don't think he's really interested in anyone but Diane. I don't think he really understands his own magnetism, to tell you the truth. Or maybe he just accepts it as part of his world, like if he had green eyes or a great singing voice, or something.'
'So, he's got charisma for women that he doesn't use,' Tolliver said.
'More or less.'
'And you're saying it doesn't affect you, like it does other women.' Mr. Skeptical.
'I'm saying… yes, that's what I'm saying.'
'If he weren't married to Diane, if he asked you out, you wouldn't jump at the chance?'
I gave that more thought than it deserved.
'I don't think so.'
'You're impervious?'
'It's not that. It's that I don't trust men who don't have to work for what they get.'
Tolliver stopped, and turned me to him with a hand on my arm. 'That's ridiculous,' he said. 'You mean a man should have to work for the love of a woman?'
'Maybe,' I said. 'Maybe I'm saying that Joel has probably come to accept this automatic king position as the norm, as his due. Without working for it.'
'You don't think he's a virtuous man?'
'I think he is. I don't think he's a crook, or a secret addict, or a cheater.'
'So, your sole objection is that he doesn't have to work for love?'
'I'm saying, there's something wrong about getting so much invested in you without setting out to earn it.'
Tolliver shrugged. 'I'm still not sure I understand,' he said.
I couldn't explain it any better. I'm not real good at explaining things, especially emotional things. But I knew what I meant. And I didn't entirely trust Joel Morgenstern.
eleven
WHEN we got back to the hotel, Rick Goldman was waiting for us, sitting in the same chair in the lobby he'd used before.
'I should've figured he'd show up, considering the scene last night,' I told Tolliver. 'I wonder if he's told the cops yet.'
I introduced Rick to Tolliver as politely as if Rick had come to ask us to tea. But there was a muscle jumping in the private detective's jaw, and his whole body was tense.
'Can we have this talk somewhere a little more private?' he growled at me.
Tolliver said, 'That would be best, I think. Come with us.'
The ride up in the elevator was silent and ominous.
The maids had been in, and the room looked clean and welcoming, I was glad to see. There's something kind of seedy in having guests in your hotel room when the evidence of your stay is strewn all around you in disorderly heaps; room service cart, crumpled newspapers, discarded books, a shoe here and there. I'd been enjoying having a sitting room at this hotel, though I never forgot I was paying for it through the nose.
'You didn't have to kill Nunley,' Rick Goldman said. 'I know he was an obnoxious drunk, but he didn't hurt you.' He switched his level gaze to Tolliver. 'Or were you so angry he manhandled your sister that you tracked him down after I left?'
'I might just as well suspect you,' I retorted, not a little pissed off. 'You're the one laid hands on him. You can leave right now if you're going to sit there and accuse us of stuff without having the slightest bit of evidence that we ever saw the man again.'
I took my jacket off and walked over to the door of my room, tossing it inside. Tolliver unbuttoned his more slowly. 'I take it you've been to the police already with your little story about what happened in the lobby,' he said.
'Of course,' said Rick. 'Clyde Nunley was an asshole, but he was a professor at Bingham. He had a family. He deserves to have his murder solved.'
'I saw he was married, on the news,' I said. 'Though, come to think of it, he didn't wear a wedding ring.'
'Lots of men don't,' Rick said.
