“Not likely,” I told her. “This is Inspector Cramer’s case, and I know him pretty well. In fact, he knew your and Lily’s father years ago. He’s hard as nails, and mule-headed as they come, but he’s honest and fair — and smart too, despite what Mr. Wolfe may say about him at times. He’d never jeopardize a case by messing up some procedure involving rights.”
“Then why is it you don’t like the sound of this?” Megan demanded, digging the thin heels of her blue Maud Frizon pumps into the plush carpet as she paced.
“I was about to ask the same thing,” Pamsett said, clearing his throat and fingering his silk tie as if to call attention to it.
“For God’s sake, shut up and let Goodwin say something,” Doyle snarled, hammering on the end table with a meaty fist.
I ignored the crossfire. “Do any of you have any idea how the police connected Michael with Linville’s death? Do they know about the episode between Linville and your daughter?”
“Not that I’m aware,” Doyle said, shaking his head. “But then, I’m not what you’d call a regular fixture around here, you understand.” He shot a glance at Pamsett, who tilted his aristocratic chin in what probably was meant to be indifference. “What about you, Megan?” Doyle rasped.
“I hardly would have told them, now, would I?” she snapped, studying her long crimson nails and an emerald ring the size of Connecticut. “God, it’s bad enough that this many people know about it without bringing more in.”
“With the attention Linville’s murder is getting in the media, and is going to continue getting, chances are the publicity’s just beginning,” I said. “You’d better brace yourselves for more.”
“That’s just great, terrific, a goddamn media circus in the making.” Megan ground her second cigarette into a crystal ashtray. “I suppose—”
“Instead of worrying about publicity, you’d better start worrying about Michael,” Doyle James barked, glaring at her. “And I thought people were supposed to mellow with age. Goodwin, let’s get back to your earlier comment, about not liking the sound of things. Explain, please.”
I took a sip of coffee and was about to start in when the phone rang. Pamsett was closest to it, but Megan darted over and waved him off, seizing the receiver.
“Hello... Yes, this is she... Yes... What?... That’s absurd. I... Yes, that’s right... No... When can we see him?... Yes... yes.” Megan cradled the receiver, turning toward us, but looking at no one in particular.
“What is it, Megan?” Pamsett asked, leaning toward her with a worried expression marring his patrician features.
“Michael,” she said woodenly. “He’s... just confessed... to killing Sparky Linville.”
Seven
The silence lasted perhaps a dozen seconds, but it seemed as if everyone in the room had decided to see how long he could hold his breath. Megan sank into the chair next to the telephone and covered her face with her hands.
“Stop acting so damn dramatic and pull yourself together!” Doyle ordered. “Who was that?”
“A police sergeant,” she whispered, letting her fingers slide down her cheeks. “I’m not sure I got his name.”
“Stebbins?” I asked.
“That sounds like it. He said Michael had asked him to call us and say he’d made a confession. They must have beat it out of him.”
“Wrong,” I said emphatically. “This is why I didn’t like the sound of things. I knew when I heard he didn’t want a lawyer that he must be getting ready to confess.”
“But why?” Megan was actually plaintive. “Michael is as gentle as a lamb — Lily can tell you that. He couldn’t hurt anyone, let alone...” She extended her arms, palms up, then let them drop.
“I don’t know what your son has said, or admitted to, but you can be sure that if the district attorney’s crew knows about Linville’s assault of your daughter, they’ll hammer on the ‘outraged-brother-hell-bent-on-avenging-his-sister’ angle, which they can make pretty damning, depending on what other evidence they have. It also means Noreen will be questioned, of course. There is another possibility...”
Doyle glared at me. “Don’t go coy on us, Goodwin. Let’s have it. Unload.”
“You hardly need to be a genius like Nero Wolfe to figure it out,” I fired back, not liking his tone. “Maybe Michael’s decided to sacrifice himself to protect someone.”
“Totally ridiculous! Who would he be protecting?” Megan wailed.
“Someone close to him — like maybe a family member.” I let my eyes briefly move to Lily, who looked thoughtful.
“That,” Megan responded, spacing the words and accenting each one, “is a despicable thing to say. Mr. Goodwin, if you were not such a close friend of my sister’s, I would ask you to leave.”
“Now, hold on a minute, Megan,” Doyle rumbled. “I came in late, but I’m assuming Goodwin is here because he knows something about criminals and murder and how the police operate, that kind of thing.”
“He’s here because I invited him to come with me, and I wouldn’t blame him one bit if he got up and walked out that door right now without so much as a backward look.” It was Lily, still sitting but tensed, and I could tell she was working to keep her Irish temper from pulling at Mount St. Helens. “But you’re right, Doyle; he does know something — a lot more than something — about criminals and police and the law, and you’d both damn well better listen to him if you care about what happens to Michael.”
Megan continued trying to vaporize me with her eyes, but Doyle nodded his assent to Lily and dropped into a chair. “I hear you,” he said. “Okay, Goodwin, the floor is yours — what do you think we ought to do now?”
“The top priority is to get your son a first-rate defense attorney pronto, whether he wants one or not,” I said. “I wouldn’t trust his case to the public defender’s office. It’s not that they don’t have some talent, but you want a heavy hitter here. I can suggest a few names if you’d like. And I’ll also talk to the people at Homicide; I might be able to find out what went on in the interrogation.”
“I still can’t believe this is happening,” Megan whined. “And he wouldn’t even phone us himself — he got a damn policeman to do it for him.”
“It sounds like he doesn’t want to see any of you right now, whatever his reasons,” I said gently.
“Well, I’m damned if anyone’s going to make me believe Michael’s guilty of a thing!” she ranted, pacing again and waving her arms like a hyperactive traffic cop on Fifty-seventh Street. “And you’re a lot of help,” she hissed at Doyle between puffs of a fresh cigarette. The room was starting to smell like the smoking car on the five-forty-two local to White Plains. “If we waited for you to spring into action, we’d all be in wheelchairs or nursing homes.”
“Oh, for God’s sake, shut up and stop embarrassing yourself, Megan.” Doyle slouched, shaking his head and jamming his hands into his pants pockets.
“Still ready to deliver the witty rejoinder, aren’t we? Some things never change — unfortunately,” she said with a tight smile. She kept on, but I quit paying attention because I was distracted by the figure that had moved into the doorway at Megan’s back.
Although I hadn’t seen her for a few years, I immediately recognized the barefoot and bathrobed young woman with the tousled black hair and puzzled blue eyes. Noreen James had matured, in a pleasantly coltish way, since our last meeting. Her face showed a less-pleasant aging, complete with dark circles that ringed those blue eyes, but that very likely was attributable to recent events.