Bloodied Ivy by Robert Goldsborough Page B

Wolfe and me, he promised to mail a copy that evening. I thanked him, getting up to go.
    “Oh, one more thing,” I asked, trying to make the question sound spontaneous. “Do you know what route was used to take Markham’s body up out of the Gash?”
    “I must say, that’s a bizarre query.” Cortland squinted at me through his smudged lenses. “But I, uh, suppose you detectives have a rationale for everything you ask. Let’s see…I actually can supply an answer. It was mentioned in the story in what passes for a local newspaper here. They brought”—he shuddered—“Hale…up that wooden stairway not far from the Old Oaks.”
    “I thought as much. Thanks.” I got up to go.
    “When will I hear from you?” he asked, and I said it would depend on Wolfe. “My boss is a hard man to predict,” I said. “But I’m sure we’ll be talking about this whole business in the next few days. And if anything happens up here that you think I should know about, please call.”
    Cortland assured me he would, and I said good-bye, walking out past Ms. Auburn-Hair, who was off the phone. “I really hope you had a nice day here, Mr. Goodman,” she said, flashing a smile that ranked right up there with Elena’s.
    “Thank you for asking,” I said. “It was so nice that I just know I’m going to come back. And when I do, I hope we can have lunch or dinner together. I’ll trust you to pick the place.”
    My answer was another smile, the kind that I chose to take for a yes with capital letters.

EIGHT
    I T WAS ALMOST FOUR WHEN I left Prescott. The traffic going south was a lot heavier than when I was driving up, so it was after six when I finally eased the Mercedes into the garage on Thirty-fourth Street. When I got back to the brownstone, Wolfe was, naturally enough, parked behind his desk with beer and his book. He didn’t bother to look up when I walked in.
    “Well, aren’t you even going to ask how my trip was?” I said after I’d gotten seated. “After all, I’ve been behind the wheel for close to a hundred-fifty miles, round trip, which in your eyes ought to qualify me for hazard pay.”
    “I seem to recall that the expedition was your idea,” he said blandly, “and that you were more than willing to undertake it on your own time.”
    “True enough. I suppose if I told you that within an hour of arriving on the Prescott campus, I figured out who the murderer was, confronted said person, extracted a confession on the spot, hauled the guilty party off to the local police, and then collected a check for one hundred thousand dollars from Walter Cortland, I’d get your attention?”
    Wolfe set his book down and glared. “Confound it, I don’t want to hear about your peregrination at this moment. After dinner is soon enough.” With that, the book went back in front of his face, so I sauntered out to the kitchen to monitor Fritz’s progress on dinner, lamb chops with walnuts. So I would have lamb twice in seven hours, but that was okay with me.
    “Archie, I was afraid you would miss two meals in one day.” Fritz looked worried as he turned from the stove, where he was checking on the chops, which he cooks in wine with chopped onion and parsley. “How was your trip?”
    “Tolerable, but if what you’re really asking is whether we have a case and a client, that’s going to depend totally on the large presence who’s soaking up beer down the hall yet as we speak.” The fretful expression on Fritz’s face deepened as he pivoted back to his work, while I went to my room to clean up and get out of the suit I had been wearing for twelve-plus hours. I knew Fritz was seeing us as candidates for New York’s homeless population.
    Wolfe invariably sets the topic for dinner-table conversation, which is never business but can range from foreign policy and economics to the social structure in ancient Rome and the fluctuating price of coffee beans from South America. This time, though, I was able to set the agenda by