Free Death Was in the Picture by Linda L. Richards Page B

Here: have another gander.”
    I saw the cop reach out and take the license, the confusion on his face clearing as soon as he touched it. The folding money Dex had pressed to the back of the license was in his pocket so quickly, I almost thought I hadn’t seen right, but the cop’s change of opinion convinced me I had. He started singing a different tune straight off.
    “Well I guess you’re right. She’s just a little thing. I don’t see what harm it’ll do. Follow this hallway down until you get to the staircase, then go up two flights, then hard left until you see a guy at a desk. Tell him Officer Stacey sent you and sez it’s just jake for you to see Wyndham.”
    “Architect forget to scribble elevators on the plans?” Dex asked before we got underway.
    Stacey shook his head. The guys are workin’ on them today. We’re not even supposed to be open yet. You’re lucky you don’t have to climb a rope.”
    That rope was starting to sound good before Dex and I got to the part of the building that Stacey had sent us, the place where they were holding Laird Wyndham. I found the building eerie. From outside it was beautiful. Teal-tinted concrete in the most moderne style. From the outside it looked like a museum. Or a bank. Something noble, something regal. It seemed almost funny that a building where so many police officers would work should look so respectable.
    Inside the building things looked different: it could have been a government-run structure anywhere. I followed Dex silently down gleaming corridors, up new-smelling stairwells and then down some more corridors until we came to the place the desk officer had described.
    At the desk, Dex had to go through pretty much the whole thing again with another officer. Once again, I saw a small donation disappear into a uniform pocket. I was getting the ideathat it was possible to get just about anything you wanted, provided you had the right greenbacked motivation and an inconspicuous way of presenting it.
    We were finally led to a long white room, lit by the dozen or so windows that lined one wall. The room reminded me of a cafeteria filled with poorly made tables and chairs, all too new to bear any but the most exploratory marks of abuse and defacement. At some of the tables prisoners sat talking in low voices with family, friends and lawyers. Many of these had ashtrays in front of them and a haze of blue smoke decorated the room as though for some unearthly holiday.
    I squelched the dual step my heart made when they brought him in. He looked just like the Laird Wyndham I’d seen so often on the silver screen, somehow undiminished at mere life-size. He didn’t look dashing. Not today. He looked precisely as I would have expected to see him if, say, he were preparing for a role as a prisoner. If that were the case, I knew he’d be unjustly accused and would likely save the warden’s infant daughter from the rubella during the time he was forced to spend in the clink. Tragic and beautiful in a masculine way. My heart did another double-step at this thought.
    “Steward said he’d try and get hold of you,” he said, pointing to an empty table and inviting us to sit, as cordial as though we were in one of his mansions or on his boat. “I’m glad to see he did. Thanks very much for coming.” The sound of his voice thrilled me. I chided myself for it. So familiar. So much the same. Yet humanized here, unamplified. His next words nearly made me faint, combined as they were with his cool, blue glance. “And who have we here?”
    “Laird Wyndham, this is Miss Katherine Pangborn, my secretary. She’ll be recording the proceedings today.” To my mortification, I felt myself make a small curtsey. Apparently Mrs. Beeson’s School for Young Ladies would never, ever die in me.
    “How do you do, Miss Pangborn,” his grip was soft—nota workingman’s hand—and neither warm nor cold. His eyes gently amused. I made myself remember the details, it seemed likely