“Did Mr. Linville know your roommate was away?” Wolfe asked.
“Not that I’m aware of, although I guess I must have mentioned it when we got upstairs. Anyway, we each had a beer, I turned on some music, and...” She braced her shoulders. Wolfe leaned back, closing his eyes, then took a breath, came forward in his chair, and started to say something, but Noreen cut him off.
“Before you ask the question, I’ll answer it for you, Mr. Wolfe,” she said, measuring her words. “I did not — repeat, did not — do anything to lead him on or encourage him. I’ve thought about it at least a dozen times every day since it happened, and I know I did absolutely nothing to make him think I was...” Her voice was a little wobbly.
“I was not about to pose that question, Miss James,” Wolfe responded evenly. “What I was about to ask was if you saw or spoke to Mr. Linville after that night.”
Noreen’s voice strengthened. That was good. Wolfe probably was shaking in his brown wing-tips, worried she might burst into tears.
“I didn’t see him again — not ever. He phoned three or four times, and I hung up when I heard his voice. He called Polly at least twice and asked her to get me to the phone, but when she told me who it was, I wouldn’t talk to him.”
“Did you tell Miss Mars what had transpired?”
“No, but she pretty much figured it out from the way I guess I was acting, plus the fact that I had a small bruise on one cheek, although I told her that was from falling on a bus when the driver slammed on the brakes. She kept asking what had happened between Sparky and me. I wouldn’t tell her — I just couldn’t. I couldn’t tell anybody.” Noreen took a couple of deep breaths, but gave a negative wave of the hand when I asked if she wanted a drink. All the color was gone from her face.
“Whom did you tell — and when?” Wolfe asked. I was probably the only person alive who could detect that he was moved by the narrative.
“Aunt Lily was really the first, and that was just this last Saturday, when we had brunch,” she said. “I’d been carrying it around with me for weeks. My mother was away, or she surely would have figured something out, and Michael and I hadn’t been together lately — no particular reason, just our separate lives. Same with Daddy, I hadn’t seen much of him for a couple of months. And actually, I didn’t even tell Aunt Lily who did it, just that it was someone I’d gone out with. She figured it out, though. She knew I’d been out with Sparky. And I think she said she’d been introduced to him, I forget exactly where.”
“So Mr. Linville knew Miss Rowan?”
“Uh... yes — at least they’d met,” Noreen said. “Why?”
“And was he also aware that Miss Rowan and Mr. Goodwin are good friends?” Wolfe asked, ignoring her question.
Noreen wrinkled her face. “Mm, it might have come up. I vaguely remember mentioning something to him after Aunt Lily’s name had come up in conversation, what with Mr. Goodwin being so... well-known and all.”
Wolfe allowed himself a slight grimace at the mention of my renown. “When did your mother learn what had transpired with Mr. Linville?”
“She got home Tuesday from Europe, and Michael and I had an informal little welcome-back party — at her place. You know, champagne, a few balloons, a sign on the door. We invited Edward — Mr. Pamsett — too, because he and Mother have been what you might call an item for some time now, a few years, I guess. I worked extra hard to look good and act cheerful. But Mother saw right through me.”
“And she managed to worm it out of you?”
“I’ll say. I guess I sort of went to pieces. Some celebration that turned out to be! I really put a damper on the big homecoming.” She looked down, pleating the skirt of her dress with her fingers.
“So on Tuesday night, not only your mother but also your brother and Mr. Pamsett knew what had happened,” Wolfe asked rhetorically. “I assume they also learned that the other party was Mr. Linville?”
Noreen nodded. “Mother was almost hysterical, which I suppose you can attribute partly to the jet lag, but through all her rantings she seemed mainly freaked-out that the newspapers would get hold of the story. Heaven help us if the sainted family name gets sullied, you know? And now what’s likely to happen to the family name in the media? Michael went nuts. I’ve never seen him so mad. In fact, he hit a glass-topped cocktail table so hard with his fist that he put a crack in it. Edward stayed his usual laid-back self, though. He thought we ought to go to the police, which really made Mother crazy.”
“Can you recall what your brother said?”
“Oh, he was furious. He started yelling about how I should have been happy to be going out with Doug. But he was only mad at himself. You know, for not being able to protect me.”
“Doug?”
“That’s somebody I see fairly often, Douglas Rojek. And then he began yelling about how people like...” Noreen took a deep breath, then another, as if she couldn’t bear to pronounce the name. “...like him are treated in other countries when they get caught doing... well, you know. He was pretty... graphic.”
“Did he make any specific threats at that time involving Mr. Linville?”
“No, just rantings. But that’s Michael — he’s mostly bark. I’ve never known him to even throw a punch at anyone, except as a college boxer, and he only did that to fulfill his sports requirement. Violence is not in his nature.”
“So noted,” Wolfe remarked dryly. “But let us for a moment consider this consecution: A young woman is outrageously ill-used by a flamboyant and wealthy libertine. Soon thereafter, this debauchee is found dead, an apparent murder victim. The young woman’s protective and outraged older brother, apprehended by the police, although not resisting them, readily confesses to the slaying. You must admit we have here, especially from the law-enforcement perspective, a compelling scenario. Were I a district attorney, I would relish such a situation.”
Noreen bristled. “You sound like an enemy rather than a friend.”
Wolfe regarded her beatifically. “It is most often friends who tell us what we least wish to hear.”
She looked at him doubtfully, then turned to me for a reaction. I raised one eyebrow and smiled.
“Oh, you’re right, of course,” she said, shifting nervously in the red leather chair. “I’m sorry for flaring up, but I’m positive Michael is innocent. Won’t you please help?”
Wolfe considered her and then looked at the wall clock, confirming that his afternoon sojourn with the orchids was perilously close at hand. “Madam,” he said, “you no doubt are aware that my fees are what some have termed exorbitant.”
“I am aware of that. I can afford you.”
He closed his eyes and coupled his hands over his center mound. I knew he was trying to figure out a good reason why he should turn Noreen down. Work was bad enough; a woman client was worse. But he also knew that if he gave her a thumbs-down, he’d have to listen to me carping about the bank balance. Simply put, the big guy was between the proverbial rock and hard place. After thirty seconds he opened his eyes and considered Noreen without enthusiasm.
“Very well. I accept your commission, but with two provisos: First, I cannot, and will not, guarantee success, if you define success as the exoneration of your brother. I will of course explore avenues that seem most likely to bring forth another candidate as Mr. Linville’s murderer. Second, I will likely need to speak to some of your acquaintances — among them Miss Mars and perhaps the gentleman of whom you spoke that you see with some regularity. Mr....?”
“Rojek. Doug Rojek.”
“Yes. In the course of my and Mr. Goodwin’s conversations with them and with others, it is probable that your unfortunate experience with Mr. Linville will be unavoidably brought into the discussion. Is this of overriding concern to you?”