Missing Woman by Michael Z. Lewin

Author:Michael Z. Lewin [Lewin, Michael Z.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pan Macmillan

Chapter Twenty One

On my way to the halls of academe, I stopped at the Hotel Penrod, where I’d seen Elizabeth Staedtler enter.

Five bucks and a quick flash of my investigator’s card got me a look at the hotel register for June, nearly as quickly as the five bucks alone would have. I found Elizabeth Staedtlers entry easily. She’d checked in on the day before she’d come to me and she’d checked out the day after. All as she had said. The only address given was Connecticut.

I pointed this out to the clerk, an elderly man who moved slowly enough to make me suspect he was really dead. “Shouldn’t you get more home address than this?”

“What for?”

“In case they leave something behind that you want to send on to them to keep their good impression of the hotel so they’ll come back when they’re next in town.”

“Anything gets left we keep for a couple of days and then divide up. You get some funny stuff sometimes. Had a bottle of booze with a worm in it last month once. A worm!”

“Do you remember this woman?” I asked.

“No.”

“How do you know? I haven’t even described her yet.”

“I don’t remember her.”

“Would some more cash help your memory?”

“Not a lot. I only started working here in July.”

I.U.P.U.I. is an enormous exercise in cooperation between the two oldest rival Indiana state universities, Indiana and Purdue. Neither of, them originated in Indianapolis; now they both have a major base there in a complex but seemingly unplanned campus built in brick and concrete around a series of parking lots.

I found my sociology secretary, though with some difficulty. She was a lively little woman who remembered talking to me. “You’re the guy said you were a private eye on a murder, right?”

“Not only said but am.”

“Christ, what a day!”

“I know the feeling,” I said.

“It didn’t stop there, you know.”

“What? Where?”

“After you called, I had three lectures to cancel. Three! What a day!”

I nodded. “About Elizabeth Staedtler?”

“I talked to the head of department about that after you called, because I thought from your voice, you know, I thought that you’d probably be coming by.” She smiled. “And here you are.”

“And here I are. What did he say?”

“She. Our head’s a she. Anyway, I talked to her, and we talked about it and then a little while ago I got this other funny phone call. Now I hardly never get funny calls, but today! And he said he was a policeman. Well, first I thought it was you again, even though the voice was kind of different, I thought it was you and after all you were what you said you weren’t and from a finance company or even an old boyfriend, you know? Only he said to call him back at the Police Department. He gave the number and I did and it was the Police Department and so he was, you know?”

“I know,” I said.

“Well, he said that I shouldn’t give you any information. And, of course, in

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