And then Danny surprised him.
“You’re right, Payne. To hell with it. I’ve had enough. My eyes are watering, and I don’t know what the hell I’m doing anymore. Let’s hang it up and start again in the morning.”
“That’s the best idea I’ve heard in eight hours.”
By the time Matt got to his apartment—checking the tapes back into the Evidence Room took even longer than checking them out had—Wally Milham and Helene Kellog were gone.Helene left a thank-you note on the refrigerator door, and when he opened it, he saw that they had stacked it with two six-packs of Ortleib’s, eggs, Taylor ham, and English muffins, which he thought was a really nice gesture.
He was sipping on a beer and frying a slice of the Taylor ham when the telephone rang.
Wohl, he thought, or Weisbach. They called the Forensics Lab to see how things were going, heard I was gone, and are now calling here.
“Hello.”
“Matt? Where have you been? I’ve been looking all over for you,” Mrs. Chadwick Thomas Nesbitt IV began.
At the top of a long list of people I would rather not talk to right now is Dear Old Daffy.
“The orgy lasted a little longer than I thought it would. I just got home.”
“Have you been drinking?” It was more an accusation than a question.
“No.”
“You’re difficult when you’ve been drinking, and I want you to be nice,” Daffy said.
“Why does you wanting me to be nice worry me?”
“I’m worried about you. Chad and I are worried about you.”
“I’m all right, Daffy. Really.”
“Chad and I are worried about you being all alone in that terrible little apartment of yours.”
“That’s very kind of you, Daphne, but there’s nothing to worry about.”
“You have to get out, Matt. What’s done is done.”
“I understand.”
“Chad says that you’ll think we’re matchmaking or something like that.”
“What’s on your convoluted mind, Daffy?” Matt asked not at all pleasantly.
Her reply came all in a rush:
“The thing is, Matt, Amanda is coming to town tomorrow on business. Now, I realize you don’t really get along with her, and I have never understood why—she’s really a very nice girl—but we’ll have to take her to dinner, or have her here for dinner, or whatever, of course, and I thought that it would be nice if you came too. That’s all that’s on my mind. It would be good for you, and playing Cupid is the last thing on my mind.”
“Oh, Daffy,” Matt said, “I don’t think—”
“Please, Matt. Do it for me. Penny would want you to.”
“Well, if you put it that way.”
“Wonderful! I’ll call you tomorrow and tell you when and where.”
The phone went dead.
She hung up before I could change my mind.