The Investigators (Badge of Honor 7)

“Oh?”

“You were at young Nesbitt’s last night?”

“Yes, we were. I rather thought we’d see you there.”

“The story as I get it, Brew, is that Susan left the party with Matt and hasn’t been seen since.”

There was a perceptible pause before Payne replied.

“Charley, Matt is no longer a child. And neither is that young woman. Matt, you know, has an apartment in the city . . .”

“I understand, I understand,” Charley said. “But the thing is, the girl always telephones her mother when she’s out of town, just before she goes to bed, and she didn’t call last night.”

“How old is the girl? Twenty-two, twenty-three, something like that?”

“Actually, a little older. Twenty-six or twenty-seven.”

“So when it comes to defending my son, I won’t have to worry about statutory rape, will I?”

“Now, take it easy, Brew. No one is suggesting . . .”

“What exactly are you suggesting, Charley?”

“I’m suggesting that I have a very important client—and a friend, too—who is worried about his daughter. You can understand that.”

“All right. What is it you want me to do?”

“Find Matt, and have him have the girl call home. Do you have any idea where he is?”

“What makes Mr. Reynolds so sure his daughter is with Matt?” Payne asked.

“When her mother, in the wee hours, called her hotel—the Bellvue—and there was no answer, she called young Nesbitt’s wife—the girls were at Bennington together—and she told her Matt had taken the girl somewhere to listen to jazz.”

“Charley, I’m more than a little reluctant to intrude in Matt’s personal life.”

“I understand that, Brew. But under the circumstances . . .”

“Does the phrase ‘consenting adults’ ever come up in your practice, Charley?”

“Brew, the girl’s an only child. A Presbyterian Jewish Princess, if you like.”

“That doesn’t sound like Matt’s type,” Payne said, thinking aloud. “As a matter of fact, Charley, Matt’s on his way out here. I will, with great discretion, ask him if he is acquainted with this young woman, and if there is any way he can suggest to her that she should telephone her mother.”

“And you’ll call me, right?”

There was a perceptible pause before Brewster Cortland Payne II replied.

“All right, Charley, I’ll call you.”

He replaced the telephone in its cradle.

“The phrase ‘consenting adults’ caught my attention, darling,” Patricia said.

“You remember the girl we met last night? Talking to Matt?”

“What about her?”

“No one seems to know where she is,” Payne said. “When last seen, she was in the company of one Matthew Payne, headed for some jazz place.”