The Bloodied Ivy (The Nero Wolfe Mysteries Book 3)
Page 20
“There’s one thing that still puzzles me, though,” I said. “You’d be the first one to admit you’re not much for reading fiction; how in hell did you know that all three of those books on Markham’s list had something to do with May-and-September romances?”
The folds in Wolfe’s cheeks deepened. “I was wondering when that would occur to you,” he said, pouring beer and watching the foam settle. “While you are correct that my reading tastes run to nonfiction, you know that I make it a point to read about books. In one source or another, I probably have read reviews of ten thousand novels over the years, including of the three titles to which you refer. And as you also know, I remember what I read.”
Okay, that sounds like bragging—and it is. But as far as I’m concerned, he can brag like that every time he fills our coffers with fifty thousand simoleons.
TWENTY-FOUR
I WAS RIGHT ABOUT LON, of course. He’d been counting on a living, breathing culprit, but nonetheless he made do and whipped together a colorful story, complete with quotes from Wolfe, Hobson, and Potter (“I’m just glad this horror is behind us and that we at Prescott can turn our attention back toward our mission as educators.”). Wolfe’s picture got in, too, although mine didn’t make it. “Space considerations” was how Lon explained it to me later.
The handwriting on the note to Elena checked out as Gretchen Frazier’s, of course, and based on this plus further investigation that included a lengthy phone conversation with Wolfe, the Orange County medical examiner up in Goshen amended the death certificates to read homicide for Markham and death by manner of suicide for Gretchen.
The Gazette and the other New York dailies had another piece on Prescott a few months later. They each covered a press conference on the campus in which plans were unveiled for the hundred million dollar Leander Bach Center for Science and Technology, a “state-of-the-art complex” for which ground would be broken sometime in the spring. They all carried the same photo—Potter and Bach grinning and standing on either side of an easel with an architect’s rendering of the buildings.
And oh, yes—I finally did get my long October weekend with Lily at her hideaway in Dutchess County, where we had three wonderful days doing as much of nothing as possible. On Monday, when I asked if she wanted to ride back to the city with me in the Mercedes, she said thanks anyway, but she wasn’t quite ready to trade the fall colors for the concrete and carbon monoxide just yet.
That meant I was alone driving south, with the option of detouring across the river to Prescott on the chance that a certain auburn-haired receptionist might be free for lunch.
I did, and she was.
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copyright © 1988 by Robert Goldsborough
introduction © 1988 by Bantam Books
cover design by Kelly Parr
978-1-4532-6892-6
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