The Investigators (Badge of Honor 7)

“Matt, I can’t betray them,” she said.

“What happened to ‘honey’?” he asked lightly, and then, his voice changing, added: “Get it through your head, honey, that they’re going to jail. If they’re lucky, the feds will let Pennsylvania try them. We don’t often send people to the chair.”

“ ‘We’ don’t?”

“We, the citizens of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania,” he said, rather unpleasantly. “Okay, first question. Did you have any prior knowledge that Chenowith was going to blow up the Biological Sciences building at the University of Pennsylvania?”

Susan shook her head and said, softly, “No.”

“No knowledge of any kind? He—and when I say ‘he,’ read Chenowith, the scumbag with the acne, and either of the women. Or any friends we don’t know about—never discussed this with you, even in idle conversation, with a couple of drinks in him? ‘What we should do is blow up the building’?”

“I told you no, Matt,” she said, then added, “God, you sound like a policeman.”

“I am a policeman,” he said. “I have to be absolutely sure of this, honey. Let me ask it in another way. When they blew up the Biological Sciences building, were you surprised, or did you sort of expect something like that to happen?”

“Matt, would you believe me if I said I’m sick about the Biological Sciences building? I was sick then, and I’m sick now.”

He looked at her carefully, and she realized he was making up his mind whether or not to believe her. And then she saw in his eyes that he did.

“That wasn’t the question, honey. The question was, did the bombing of the Biological Sciences building come to you as a surprise, or not?”

“I really didn’t even know Bryan Chenowith when that happened,” she said.

“Then how the hell did you get involved with these people? Has he got something on you?”

“Now he does,” she said.

“What?”

“I know what he did, and that the police are looking for him. Isn’t that what you said—I’m an accessory after the fact, for helping him?”

“What’s he got on you?”

“That I’ve been helping him.”

“Why have you been helping him?” Matt asked impatiently.

“Room service!” a cheery voice announced, and there was a knock on the door.

“Just a minute,” Matt called.

He gestured for her to give him the robe again. When she did, he saw that she was wearing underpants.

“What did I do? Shame you back into maidenly modesty?” he asked.

“Don’t you ever shut your mouth?” she snapped.

“Go hide in the bathroom like a good girl,” he said, stuffing his arms into the sleeves of the robe.

She went into the bathroom and closed the door, and listened while he dealt with the waiter, and to the sound of furniture moving, and metallic clanks she presumed were the plate and dish covers that come with room-service meals. But when the noise died down, he didn’t come to the bathroom door. She wondered if the waiter was still there, or if there was some other reason.

Curiosity finally got the best of her. She opened the bathroom door carefully and walked quickly to the door to the sitting room.

Matt was sitting at the table, wearing the terry-cloth robe, putting an oyster on a cracker.

“Pity you don’t like oysters. These are first-rate,” he said.

“I’ve been waiting for my robe,” she said indignantly, walking across the room to him, concealing as much of her breasts as she could with her arms.