The Investigators Part 9

What Tony Harris thought of Charley's boosting a pa.s.skey from a hotel maintenance man-and more important, how he reacted-would, Matt had realized, instantly decide the matter once and for all.

Tony Harris, de jure, just one of the four detectives a.s.signed to the Investigations Section, was de facto far more than just the detective in charge of the surveillance by virtue of his eighteen years' seniority. He had spent thirteen of those eighteen years as a homicide detective, and earned a department-wide reputation as being among the best of them.

He was consequently regarded with something approaching awe by Detectives Payne, McFadden, and Martinez, who had less than a year's service as detectives.

Tony's response when handed the key had surprised Detective Payne.

"Maybe you're not as dumb as you look, McFadden," he had said, dropping the key in his pocket.

And they had used the keys during the rest of the surveillance.

The difference, it occurred to Matt as he waited for the elevator, was that they had done so under cover of law. Believing in probable cause, a judge had issued a search warrant authorizing search and electronic surveillance of "appropriate areas within the Bellvue-Stratford Hotel."

The search warrant had obviously expired when those being surveilled had been arrested and arraigned.

Matt was about to unlock his door, and leave the key inside his door, when the elevator appeared. He shrugged and got on, and it began its slow descent to the bas.e.m.e.nt garage.

The turn-of-the-century brownstone mansion had been gutted several years before by Rittenhouse Properties, Inc., and converted into office s.p.a.ce, now wholly occupied by the Delaware Valley Cancer Society. The idea of turning the garret into an apartment had been a last-minute idea of the princ.i.p.al stockholder of Rittenhouse Properties, Inc. He thought there might be, providing a suitable tenant-a widow living on a small pension, for example-could be found, a small additional amount of revenue from the apartment, and failing finding a suitable resident, that it would be useful-as much for parking s.p.a.ce in the bas.e.m.e.nt as for the apartment itself-to himself and his family.

At the time, it had never entered the mind of the princ.i.p.al stockholder of Rittenhouse Properties, Inc., Brewster Cortland Payne II, that his son would move into the apartment to comply with the requirement of the City of Philadelphia that its police officers live within the city limits.

There were two cars in the parking spots closest to the elevator in the bas.e.m.e.nt of the building set aside for the occupant of the garret apartment. A new Plymouth four-door sedan sat in one, and a silver Porsche 911 in the other. The Plymouth was an unmarked police car a.s.signed to Detective Matthew M. Payne. The Porsche had been a present from his father and mother, on the occasion of his graduation-summa c.u.m laude-from the University of Pennsylvania.

After a moment's indecision, Matt unlocked the door of the Porsche and got behind the wheel. He was off-duty. He was going to the Bellvue-Stratford to see about Daffy's missing friend-and afterward to have breakfast with his father-as a private citizen. The taxpayers should not be asked to pay for his gas and wear and tear on the car when he was off-duty. And besides, he liked to drive the Porsche.

Five minutes later, after inching through early-morning inner-city traffic, he pulled to the curb on South Broad Street in an area marked "Tow Away Zone." He took from under the seat a cardboard sign on which was stamped the gold seal of the City of Philadelphia and the words "POLICE DEPARTMENT-Official Business" and placed it on the dash of the Porsche.

He entered the hotel, went directly to the house phones, and asked the operator to connect him with Miss Susan Reynolds.

There was no answer.

He put the telephone down and started to leave, then picked it up again.

"Operator," he said. "I've been trying to get Miss Susan Reynolds in 802. I'm sure she's there, but there's no-"

"Miss Reynolds is in 706, 706, sir," the operator said after a moment, and more than a little scornfully. "I'll ring." sir," the operator said after a moment, and more than a little scornfully. "I'll ring."

Matt felt just a little pleased with himself. He was now possessed of good ol' Susan's room number. He knew if he had asked for it-unless he had identified himself as a cop, which he didn't want to do, running down one of Daffy's friends not being legitimate police business-the hotel would not have provided it to him, as a security measure.

He had learned a good deal about the security measures practiced by the Bellvue-Stratford Hotel while on the surveillance detail.

He paused thoughtfully for a moment by the house phones, then decided that one possibility was that Susan might have been willing to show the etchings in her hotel room to another of the young gentlemen who had been at Daffy and Chad's.

And conceivably, at this very moment, Saint Susan might be doing with someone else-even that horse's a.s.s T. Winslow Hayes was a possibility-what she had been unwilling to do with him, and, if this was true, be absolutely uninterested in talking to her mother or Daffy or anyone else while so engaged.

If she was so engaged, her car would be in the hotel garage. If that was so, he could call Daffy and tell her so. It would be a confession of failure on his part to seduce the lady, but on the other hand it would get Daffy off his back.

He went out the side door of the hotel and walked the half block to the public parking garage that also provided parking services for guests of the Bellvue-Stratford.

En route, without really thinking about it, he made the choice among his options. He could ask the attendant if there was a red Porsche 911 in the garage, which the attendant might not know; if at that point he tried to have a look for himself, that might require that he produce his badge, which he didn't want to do. Or he could just march purposefully past the attendant-the garage was self-park-as if he were going to reclaim his car and have a look.

He chose the latter option. The attendant in his little cubicle didn't even raise his head from the Philadelphia Daily News Philadelphia Daily News when he walked past him. when he walked past him.

There was no Porsche on the ground, or first and second floors, but there were two, both 911s, on the third. Neither was red, but he thought Daffy might be wrong about the color.

The blue Porsche 911 had Maryland tags, so that obviously wasn't it. The second, black, Porsche had Pennsylvania plates. Half a bingo. There weren't that many Porsche 911s around, so the odds were that a black Porsche 911 with Pennsylvania plates belonged to Saint Susan. But on the other hand, one should not jump to premature conclusions.

He peered through the rear window for some kind of connection with Saint Susan, and found none. Quite the opposite. He didn't think Saint Susan would have left a battered briefcase and a somewhat raunchy male golf hat on the seat of her car.

"Can I help you, buddy?" a male voice demanded.

He looked up and found himself being regarded with more than a little suspicion by a Wachenhut Security Service rent-a-cop.

Matt immediately understood that it was less an offer of a.s.sistance than a pointed inquiry.

"No, thanks," he said with a smile.

"What are you doing?" the rent-a-cop demanded.

Matt produced his detective's identification, a badge and a photo identification card in a leather folder.

"Police business," he said.

"Lemme see that," the rent-a-cop said, holding his hand out for the folder.

Matt was not surprised. He was aware that he looked like a nice young well-dressed man from the suburbs-someone just starting to climb the corporate ladder at the First Philadelphia Bank & Trust, for example-and had grown used to people being surprised to learn that he was a detective.

The rent-a-cop carefully compared Matt's photograph with his face, then changed his att.i.tude as he handed the ID back.

"Anything I can help you with?"

"I was looking for a Porsche 911 like this," Matt said. "But red. This isn't the one."

"I don't think we got one," the rent-a-cop said, searching his memory, and then added, "We had one yesterday. With a really good-looking blonde in it. She went out about half past five, just as I was going off duty."

"That's probably what I was looking for," Matt said. "Thanks for the help."

"Anytime," the rent-a-cop said.

Matt left the garage and walked back toward Broad Street.

There's a pay phone just inside the lobby of the Bellvue. I'll call Chad from there, and tell him that wherever Susan is doing whatever she is doing, she's not doing it at the Bellvue.

He got as far as the bank of pay phones before he had second thoughts about that. He realized he had a growing feeling-cop's intuition-that something was not entirely kosher here.

It wouldn't hurt to have a look at her room.

He walked across the lobby and got on one of the elevators.

He stopped before room 706 and knocked at the door. When there was no answer, he called, "Susan, it's Matt Payne. If you're in there, please open the door."

When there was still no answer, he took the pa.s.skey from his pocket and unlocked the door and walked in.

There was no one in the room.

The bed had not been slept in. The cover had not been pulled down, and it was not mussed, as if Susan had not lain down on it.

A matching bra.s.siere and scanty underpants, a slip, and a sweater and skirt were on the bed.

The bathroom was a mess. Tidiness was apparently not among Susan's many virtues. She had apparently showered before going to Daffy and Chad's. Discarded towels were on the floor. And she had shaved her legs and/or armpits. Her lady's-model razor was in the sink.

And it was apparently that time of the month, for there was an open carton of Tampax on the shelf, beside a bottle of perfume, a stick of deodorant, and other feminine beauty supplies and tools.

He first decided that when Susan had left her room, she had had absolutely no intention of bringing anyone male with her when she returned, otherwise she wouldn't have left all the junk out in the open, and then he had the some what ungallant and immodest thought that the reason she had put him down so firmly was that, under the circ.u.mstances, there was no way they could have done anything about it.

And then he was suddenly very uncomfortable, to the point of shame, with the sense of being an intruder on her very personal life.

I've got absolutely no right to be in here. What the h.e.l.l was I thinking about? Jesus Christ, what would I have done if she suddenly had walked in here?

He walked quickly out of the bathroom, and through the bedroom to the corridor, carefully closing the door behind him. As he turned toward the elevator, he saw two women of the housekeeping staff examining him carefully.

s.h.i.+t!

He rode down to the lobby, walked quickly through the lobby and out onto South Broad, and got into his car.

On the way to Wallingford, he pulled into a gas station and called Chad from a pay phone. He didn't want his parents to overhear him, as they probably would if he called from what he thought of as home.

He told Chad what he knew, that when he called from the lobby of the Bellvue-Stratford, she didn't answer her telephone, and that the rent-a-cop at the parking garage told him he remembered seeing a blonde in a red Porsche 911 leaving early the previous evening.

He did not mention to Chad that she had apparently not spent the night in her room-the unmade bed suggested that-because that would have meant letting Chad know he'd gone into her room.

He now recognized that going into her room was another item on his long list of Dumb Things I Have Done Without Thinking First.

The whole incident should be finished and done with, but once again he had that feeling that something wasn't kosher and that the incident was not not closed. closed.

FIVE.

Patricia Payne found her husband on the flagstone patio outside the kitchen, comfortably sprawled on a cast-aluminum lounge, and, surprising her not at all, with a thick legal brief in his hands.

"Guess who's coming to breakfast?" she asked.

Mr. and Mrs. Brewster Cortland Payne lived in a large, rambling house on four acres on Providence Road, in Wallingford, on Pennsylvania Route 252. It was a museum, Payne often thought gratefully, that Patricia had turned, with love, into a home.

What was now the kitchen and the sewing room had been the whole house when it had been built of fieldstone before the Revolution. Additions and modifications over two centuries had turned it into a large rambling structure that fit no specific architectural category, although a real estate saleswoman had once remarked in the hearing of Patricia that "the Payne place just looked looked like old, old money." like old, old money."

The house was comfortable, even luxurious, but not ostentatious. There was neither swimming pool nor tennis court, but there was, in what a century before had been a stable, a four-car garage. The Payne family swam, as well as rode, at the Rose Tree Hunt Club. They had a summer house in Cape May, New Jersey, which did have a tennis court, as well as a berth for their boat, a thirty-eight-foot Hatteras, called Final Tort IV. Final Tort IV.

The only thing wrong with it, Brewster Payne now thought, was that the children were now gone.

"Not Amy," he said. "I just talked to her."

Amelia Alice Payne, M.D., was the eldest of the Payne children.

"Matt."

"I'll be d.a.m.ned."

"He called here," she said. "And he said he would be here in an hour."

"I wonder what the probability factor of that actually happening is?"

"Maybe he's got something on his mind," Patricia said. "He seemed a little strange last night."

"He didn't seem strange to me," he said.

The telephone, sitting on the fieldstone wall that bordered the patio, rang.

Patricia answered it, then handed it to her husband.

"Brewster Payne," he said.

"Charley Emmons, Brew. How the h.e.l.l are you?"

Charles M. Emmons, Esq., was a law-school cla.s.smate and a frequent golf partner of Brewster Payne, and the senior member of a Wall Street law firm that specialized in corporate mergers.

"Charley, my boy! How the h.e.l.l are you you?"

"At the moment, a little embarra.s.sed, frankly."

"I can't believe you want to borrow money, but I will listen with compa.s.sion."

"I don't have to borrow money from you; I can take all I need from you on the links."

"Do I detect a challenge?"

"Unfortunately, no. I wish it was something like that."

"What's up, Charley? What can I do for you?"

"You don't know Tom Reynolds, do you?"

Thomas J. Reynolds, if that's who he's talking about, Brewster Payne recalled, Brewster Payne recalled, is chairman of the board, president, and chief executive officer of-what the h.e.l.l is the name?-a Fortune 500 company that has been gobbling up independent food manufacturers at what looks like a rate of one a week. is chairman of the board, president, and chief executive officer of-what the h.e.l.l is the name?-a Fortune 500 company that has been gobbling up independent food manufacturers at what looks like a rate of one a week.