Margaret Maron - The Right Jack

"Yes, ma'am. In fact, I was the one that put out the fire. I was just coming in the door when it happened and as soon as I saw the smoke, I grabbed the fire extinguisher there beside the door and ran right over."

"That was quick thinking."

"Well, it was just a small fire," the youth said modestly.

Sigrid shook a tablet from the bottle in her pocket, washed it down with the water, and returned the glass to the young black man. "Before they startedp laying last night, did you see anyone moving the cribbage boards at Table 5? Picking them up or anything?"

"No, ma'am. They already asked us that. Most folks were up at the front or standing 'round the hospitality table eating and drinking. 'Course, I wasn't watching every minute because I had to take out dirty glasses and bring in clean ones, so I guess somebody could have. I didn't see 'em though."

Sigrid thanked him again for her water and turned back to answer a question from Jim Lowry. Beyond his shoulder, she saw Lieutenant Knight re-enter the Bontemps Room, closely followed by Molly Baldwin. The assistant manager looked exhausted and Sigrid decided she'd settle the point Jill Gill had raised and then let the girl go home before she fell asleep on her feet.

As the busboy moved away, he remembered how old George had praised him for acting so quickly and how the boss lady would likely give him a bonus. Andh e remembered something else as well. He turned back, but that police lady was already busy with other people. Besides, he thought, it was such a little thing. She probably already knew about it anyhow.

He hesitated and the room steward appeared at his shoulder. "Over there, Johnson. Someone's spilled a cup of coffee. Step to it!"

"Yessir, Mr. George," he said smartly and hurried off.

ONLY a few minutes had passed since Sigrid swallowed the pain tablet, but already she could feel its effect. The ache in her arm hadn't yet begun to diminish, but at least it had stopped building. In the meantime, she tried to ignore her discomfort and listen intelligently while Lieutenant Knight perched on the edge of a gilt and purple silk chair and described his visit to the graphic studio down in the hotel's lower levels.

It was near the secretarial pool, he reported, that service area provided as a courtesy for business travelers who required light typing or access to a computer terminal or a Xerox machine during their stays in the city; just down the hall and around a corner from the barber shop and valet services.

"The calligrapher, a Mr. Gustaffason, says they finished matting the seating chart Wednesday afternoon. It sat on thatt ripod-easel doodad at the front of their studio all evening and was sent upstairs around eleven-thirty Thursday morning. The studio wasn't locked and this Gustaffason seems like a popular, loosey-goosey character, so there's probably a steady stream of people in and out. Dozens could have seen it."

It was no more than she expected, Sigrid told him, and beckoned to Molly Baldwin, who stood wearily before one of the more exuberant murals. She looked as if she longed to step inside its meadowed depths and curl up on the grass beside one of those fat sheep around whom giddy shepherdesses frolicked with their serenading swains.

"I know you're tired," Sigrid told her, "so I won't keep you much longer. I forgot to ask you before: do you know Commander Dixon?"

The girl looked at them stupidly.

"The female naval officer who sat next to Professor Sutton," prompted Lieutenant Knight helpfully.

"Oh." her voice was flat. "Sorry. My mind's almost quit functioning. No, I thought I told you. I didn't know anyo f the contestants. Unless it was like Professor Sutton; somebody I'd met in the course of my work and whose name didn't register. I don't remember meeting her here, though. Or Mr. Wolferman or that policeman or any of the others either."

"One of the players thought that Commander Dixon kept looking at you last evening as if she knew you," said Sigrid.

"Really?"

"It was during Mr. Flythe's discussion of the game rules after everyone was seated."

The girl's fingers began to twine around the same brown curl as she struggled to remember where she had been at that point. "I must have been on the far side of the room then, going over arrangements with the room steward. There were dozens of people between us. Are you sure your witness wasn't mistaken?"

"She could have been," Sigrid conceded. "Or perhaps Commander Dixon was interested in the steward or another of your people. From the angle, thoughi t would almost have to be someone standing up, wouldn't it?"

The girl shrugged listlessly and Sigrid accepted the inevitable.

"That will be all for now, Ms. Baldwin. Thank you for your help today. We'll probably talk again another time."

"You're sure there's nothing else I can do right now? I don't mind, Lieutenant. Really I don't."

Even as she spoke, she had to stifle an involuntary yawn.

"I'm sure," said Sigrid.

As Molly Baldwin left them, Lieutenant Knight looked at Sigrid critically. "Didn't you just get out of a hospital this morning?"

Sigrid nodded stiffly.

"Then shouldn't you take a break? If you don't mind me saying, you look like you're pushing the edge."

"I'm quite all right," she told him. But she did stand to flex her neck and shoulders and, as long as she was up, she decided to call Metro Medical and check on Tillie's condition.

The telephone was at the end of the hall in a secluded alcove. Awkwardlyc lutching the phone with her wounded hand, she inserted coins and punched out the number she had hastily scrawled on a scrap of paper that morning. The hospital switchboard passed her from one extension to another until at last she was plugged in to the intensive care waiting room and heard Marian Tildon's voice on the other end of the wire.

Tillie's wife sounded tired but buoyant with relief. "You caught me on my way home for a few hours' sleep," she told Sigrid. "Oh Lieutenant, it's wonderful! Charles is out of the coma! He said my name. He knew who I was!"

Until that moment Sigrid had not realized how worried she had been about Tillie. Hearing Marian's report, she felt some of the day's tension drain away.

Up in Zachary Wolferman's comfortable Central Park apartment, Haines Froelick was succumbing to the housekeeper's care. A hot cup of tea and then straight to bed had been Emily's motherly decree. Outside the tall narrow windows.

October seemed poised to jump from Indian summer to true autumn. Curtains of rain swooped across the park below and sheeted the gold and scarlet leaves with cold water.

It had been a horrid day, Mr. Froelick thought, splashing in and out of the limousine in the rain, making arrangements for Zachary's body. The conference with the undertaker and another later with the minister, the notices to the papers, and the telephone that never stopped ringing. Fortunately, good old Emily had sensibly suggested that he ask Maritime National to send someone up and now a capable young lady, a Miss Vaughan, sat in Zachary's study and listened to their friends' condolences and courteously promised to relay them to Mr. Froelick.

Then after lunch had come those two awful police detectives in their damp wool jackets with so many questions: Who hated Zachary? Who wanted him dead? Whom had he recognized at the Maintenon last night? And then their interest in his photography: What sort of cameras did he own and didn't onea lmost need a degree in chemistry to develop one's own film? And each of his answers had been greeted with such skepticism…

Now he lay awake in the guest bedroom. Emily had tearfully offered to put fresh linens on Zachary's bed, but he wasn't quite ready for that yet.