“Not knowing that I was going to be playing second fiddle,” she said sweetly, “I joined Smilow at Roper Hospital, and we lucked out.”
“How so?”
“One of those people stricken with food poisoning?”
“Yeah?”
Headlights turned onto the street at the opposite end from where Hammond was parked. He started his car.
“Where are you, Hammond?” Steffi demanded impatiently. “Are you listening? It sounds like you’re cutting out.”
“I can hear you. Keep talking. One of the people stricken with food poisoning…”
“Saw a woman outside Pettijohn’s suite. Well, actually, he can’t swear that it was outside Pettijohn’s suite, but that’s a technicality we can iron out if everything else falls into place.”
The car stopped in front of Dr. Ladd’s office. She drove off with some guy in a convertible, Winthrop’s owner had told him.
Steffi was saying, “So after a lot of hem-hawing about an affair—”
Driving slowly, Hammond got close enough to see that the car was a convertible.
“On second thought, never mind about the affair,” Steffi said. “It’s irrelevant. Believe me. Anyway, Mr. Daniels got a much better look at the woman than he had first led us and Mrs. Daniels to believe.”
The glare of the convertible’s headlights blinded Hammond from seeing anything behind them. But as he pulled even with the car, he turned his head in time to see the occupants. A man behind the steering wheel. A woman in the passenger seat. His woman. No question.
“Mr. Daniels now admits that he remembers her approximate height and weight, hair color, and so forth.”
Hammond tuned Steffi out. Once he was past the other car, he cut his eyes to his external side mirror in time to see the man reach across the console and hook his hand around the back of her neck, bringing her face up close to his.
Hammond stamped his accelerator, taking the corner too fast and causing his tires to squeal. Sure, it was an immature, jealousy-inspired reaction, but that’s what he felt like doing. He felt like hitting something. He really felt like telling Steffi to shut the fuck up.
“Just do it, Steffi,” he said, abruptly stopping her in midsentence.
Taken aback, she took a quick breath. “Do what?”
He didn’t know what. He had been only half listening, but he wouldn’t admit that to her. She’d been telling him about a potential witness. Someone who had seen someone near Pettijohn’s suite and could provide a fairly accurate description.
Steffi might also have suggested a sketch artist. She had mentioned that about the time Hammond had rolled past the convertible, and her prattle had been drowned out by the blood that had rushed to his head. The gist of what Steffi told him had registered, but most of it had been obscured by a wild, primal urge to go back and put his hands around the throat of the bastard in the convertible.
One thing was certain: He had to assert himself or explode. Now. Immediately. He had to establish that there was something over which Hammond Cross still had control.
“I want an artist there first thing in the morning.”
“It’s late, Hammond.”
He knew what time it was. For hours he’d been sitting in a sweltering automobile, entertaining sexual fantasies. For his trouble, all he’d got was Dr. Ladd in the company of another man. “I know how late it is.”
“My point is, I don’t know if I can get—”
“What’s the guy’s room number?”
“Mr. Daniels’s room number? Uh…”
“I want to talk to him myself.”
“That really isn’t necessary. Smilow and I questioned him at length. Besides, I think he’s being discharged in the morning.”
“Then you’d better set it up early. Seven-thirty. And have the police sketch artist standing by.”