Death of a Doxy (Crime Line)

Seated on one of the chairs on the visitors' side at ten minutes past ten Tuesday morning, I was not chipper. I had supposed I would see Orrie in a room at the DA's office until Parker had phoned to say it would be the City Prison, and then I had taken it for granted it would be in a room. But I had been escorted to the paddock, and there I was, with four other visitors spread along the line, the nearest one, a middle-aged fat woman with red eyes, only seven feet away. I would have liked to think they were merely showing what they thought of Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin, but I didn't. They had decided that Orrie Cather was a murderer, though they hadn't charged him yet, and were taking no chances. Try to make them eat it.

A door opened in the back wall, the other side of the grill and counter, and Orrie entered, cuffed, with a dick right behind. The dick steered him to a chair opposite me, watched him sit, said, "Fifteen minutes," and went back to the wall, where another dick was standing. My eyes and Orrie's met as well as they could through the grill. The rims of his were puffy. He had once admitted to me that he brushed his hair ten minutes every morning, but he hadn't that morning.

"It could be bugged," I said.

"I don't think so," he said. His cuffed hands were on the counter. "Too risky. Too big a stink."

"Well, all we can do is keep it low. Parker has told you that Mr. Wolfe and Saul and Fred and I have decided that you didn't kill her and we're on it."

"Yeah, I knew he'd have to. I'm not his Archie Goodwin, but even me he'd have to."

"I prefer to regard myself as my Archie Goodwin, but we won't go into that now. I have a couple of questions, but Parker says you wanted to see me. Well?"

"I want you to do me a favor, Archie, a big favor. I want you to see Jill Hardy and tell her -"

"I've already seen her. She came to the office yesterday morning, don't interrupt, and we had a talk. I didn't know how much you had told her about Isabel Kerr, so I -"

"I have never told her anything about Isabel Kerr. She didn't know there was an Isabel Kerr. Goddammit, what did you tell her?"

"Same as you, nothing. Of course that's the favor you were going to ask, and it's already done. I told her that the cops thought you killed her, and we thought you didn't, and we were going to investigate, and we knew nothing about Isabel Kerr. Now I have -"

"You're wonderful, Archie. Wonderful."