The Investigators (Badge of Honor 7)

“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, 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 ass 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 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 assistance 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 attitude 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.