Death of a Doxy (Crime Line)

Being a warder, I couldn't go for a walk, and anyway I had to catch the news broadcasts every half-hour to learn if there had been any development worth reporting in a murder case, for instance that a man named Barry Fleming had been taken to the District Attorney's office for questioning in connection with the murder of his sister-in-law. There hadn't. I spent the two hours at the files and my desk, with the germination records. It helps, at a time like that, to have something to do that needs only one small corner of your mind, like entering on cards such items as the results to date of a cross between Odonto-glossum crispo-harryanum x aireworthi or Miltonia vexillaria x roezli.

When they came down together in the elevator at six o'clock, I was too busy even to turn my head, but I became aware of a presence near my right shoulder, and a voice asked, "Can I help?"

So we were speaking. I said, "No, thanks."

"Did you phone?"

"Yeah, you have a cold."

"Has anything happened?"

"Yes. We have made up. Apparently."

"Oh, I never nurse a huff. Anyway, I knew you were right. I just wanted to see how mean you could get. One thing I could have said, I could have threatened to call a cop. Evidently the one thing you and Nero can't stand is for anybody to tell a cop anything. It's been more than four hours since she left. Damn it, what's she doing?"

That was the second time I had ever heard a woman call him Nero, but the other time it had been a gag. For Julie it was just natural. If she stayed two days and two nights in a man's house, and ate with him, and collaborated with him, and helped him with his orchids, it would have been silly to call him Mister. If she got the fifty grand and picked a college that wasn't too far away, I might drop in after she had been there a while to see what effect she was having. It was a cinch that she would have more effect on it than it would have on her.

I accepted her offer to help with the germination records.