I stopped licking the place where she’d burned my thumb. “Why were you making like a gossipeeper in the corridor?”
“Mister Lanerd wasn’t at the studio.” She glanced over her shoulder at Roffis, shivered. “He’s always at the studio, program nights. When he didn’t show up, I asked Miss Millett where he was; she said he’d stayed here at the hotel. She seemed terribly upset about something; that didn’t make me worry any less. Jeff, he’s our producer, he couldn’t tell me anything, either. He was bothered about Mister Lanerd’s absence, too. So I hurried back here to his suite, thinking that was where Miss Millett meant. But he wasn’t over there. Then I heard voices across the hall. I knew there shouldn’t be anyone in Miss Millett’s rooms, so I came and listened at the door.”
Hacklin grunted skeptically. “How long you been keyholing out there?”
“Only a minute or two.” She did what she could to fix her face with her soggy handkerchief. “Who — did that?” She pointed at Roffis.
Hacklin raised his eyebrows. “Wouldn’t have any idea?”
“No.” Then it struck her; Lanerd’s absence, the dead man, the officer investigating. She slapped the handkerchief to her mouth. “Oh, no! You couldn’t possibly suspect Mister Lanerd of a thing like that!” Probably Hacklin hadn’t, up to then. But it must have occurred to him now that his boss downtown might ask why he’d sent Lanerd away after he’d been found in the same room with a murdered man. “When were you last in this suite, Miss Moore?”
“I’ve never been in here before.” She had herself pretty well under control.
“You seem to know your way around the hotel right well. How’d you get into Lanerd’s rooms?” That accusing-finger method didn’t adorn Hacklin’s style.
I thought he’d gone far enough. “Mister Lanerd often uses his duplex for business entertainment. His advertising-agency crowd comes and goes, all hours of day and night. Miss Moore could get a key just by asking. Expect she’s known, down at the desk.”
“Yes, indeed.” She nodded gratefully.