“Really?” Reynolds asked.
“I don’t really expect to find it,” Matt said. “But someone has to look, and I am the junior man on the totem pole.”
“I think you’re being far too modest, Matt,” Mr. Reynolds said.
“Sir?”
“On the night in question,” Reynolds said, making the cliché a joke, “and immediately thereafter, when we were still thinking of you as the ogre who had run off with the Princess, I asked Charley Emmons about you, and he said that you were—you had earned the right to be—the fair-haired boy of the Philadelphia Police Department.”
“Really?” his wife said. “You didn’t say anything to me, Daddy.”
“Among other things, Charley said your father told him you ranked number two on the detectives’ exam when you took it. First time out.”
“Among what other things, Daddy?” Susan asked.
“Well—there’s no need for you to feel embarrassed, Matt; you didn’t mention any of this yourself—he’s been in two gun battles, and won both of them. Killed both criminals who were trying to kill him. He has two citations for valor, and one for outstanding performance of duty.”
“Really?” Mrs. Reynolds asked.
“I’m impressed,” Susan said. “You want to tell us about the gun battles, Matt?”
“No, ” Matt said simply.
“I can understand that,” Mr. Reynolds said. “And I don’t think you should push him about that, Princess. But my whole point here is that I really don’t think Matt was sent here because he’s low man on the totem pole. His superiors, I am sure, sent him here because they think he can find whatever he’s looking for. He’s a very highly regarded detective.”
Matt looked at Susan and saw something—more likely alarm rather than surprise—that hadn’t been in her eyes before.
Thanks a lot, Daddy, for triggering Princess Susie’s alarm.
Christ, have you—goddamn you, Daddy—blown this whole thing?
Quick, change the subject.
“How do you like your Porsche, Susie?”
That wasn’t brilliant, but it certainly is a change of subject.
“I like it fine,” she said. “How did you know I have a Porsche?”
“Mommy and I really wish she didn’t,” Daddy said. “That’s really too much car for a girl.”
“Oh, I agree,” Matt said.
“How did you know I have a Porsche?” Susan repeated. “And it is not too much car for a girl. Sometimes, Daddy!”
“Daffy told me,” Matt said. “Daffy said, ‘You’ll like Susie. She has a car just like yours.’ ”
“You have a Porsche?”
“Uh-huh. A silver 911.”
“Susie’s is fire-engine red,” Mommy said. “She’s always getting speeding tickets.”
“They—Porsche 911s—are known in the law-enforcement community as AHN cars,” Matt said.
“Excuse me?” Daddy said.
“Arrest Him—or of course