Free Flynn's In by Gregory McDonald Page A

before.” He stood up and went around his desk. Opened face-down on the desk was Bruno Bettleheim’s
Surviving and Other Essays
. “That’s a different world up there on the hill, Inspector. The members of The Rod and Gun Club aren’t from around here. And, honest, I only know who a few of them are. God knows who they are. I see the limousines and the helicopters come and go.” He stabbed his finger at the closed door. “And I know how many calls a week the various members get from The White House. From Ottawa. From Mexico City. From the heads of the security and commodity exchanges. Senate chambers. Even the Supreme Court, for Christ’s sake. I’m supposed to say ‘No’ to all that?” He sat on the wooden swivel chair behind his desk. “Those guys up there can do what they want to do. That’s clear enough. In this world, we’re all equals, Inspector Flynn, but some are more equal than others. I think you’ve heard that.
When the gods on Olympus want to play/Who are we, mere mortal men, to say, Nay?”
    Flynn was looking at the man who looked too big behind his little, empty desk. “And if it comes to it, man, will you perjure yourself? Will you stand up in court and lie?”
    “I’m told it won’t come to that. Mister Wahler says you, Inspector Flynn, will see to it that it doesn’t.”
    “I will, will I?”
    “I’ve shown reporters around today, walked them through ‘the evidence,’ played the good old country boy role, clucked with them over an ever-so-tragic hunting accident.”
    “And they swallowed it?”
    “They just wanted to shoot film, grab a story, any story, and get back to someplace warm. Sure they swallowed it. What’s to make them suspicious? Why should a country boy like CarlMorris lie about the death of someone like Dwight Huttenbach? Obviously, there isn’t any connection between us.”
    “And did you tell the same lies to Dwight Huttenbach’s widow?”
    Morris snorted. “You think she wants to know the truth? She was driven here by a friend, Flynn.” Morris laid the palm of his hand flat on the wooden surface of the desk. “A male friend. All these people live and think in a way inconceivable to me. As soon as I opened the door to the room where we had put Huttenbach’s things, she backed right away. I doubt she’d even know what belongs to her husband and what doesn’t.”
    “Where is she now?”
    “Room 11. Behind the fireplace. She’s waiting for the Shaws to pickle her husband in preservatives and pack him in a box. She never even asked to see him.”
    “We’ll go talk to her,” said Flynn.
    Carl Morris stood up behind his desk. “You ask us to care that some spoiled kid choked on his silver spoon last night? Well, I don’t care. The spoons at my house may be aluminum but I need ’em to feed my kids. Doesn’t that make sense to you?”
    “Yes, it makes sense,” said Flynn. “It makes so much sense, regretfully, it even makes a fence four meters high make sense.”

11
     
    F lynn knocked on the door of Room 11.
    “Who is it?” inquired a woman’s voice.
    Flynn did not answer.
    Presently the door was opened by a short man in his early thirties wearing a well-cut jacket and slacks. His moustache was pencil-thin.
    “Yes?”
    He did not resist Flynn and Cocky entering the room.
    A woman in her late twenties, tailored suit, sat with a straight back, crossed ankles, in one of the two plastic chairs in the room. On the table between the two chairs were used coffee cups.
    “Carol Huttenbach, I’m Inspector Flynn. I’m with the police. This is Detective Lieutenant Concannon.”
    “I’m Max Harvey,” said the man coming around from behind them, returning to the other chair. “I drove Carol up.”
    “You have my sympathy, Mrs. Huttenbach.”
    “Thank you. I suppose I could ask you to sit on the beds.” Her hands were clasped in her lap. “This place is so frightfully cold.”
    “I must say,” drawled Max Harvey, “when I talked to Chief of Police