“I don’t think anybody was. Janet had come out a while before. She was at Jimmie’s chair with a customer.”
“Good God.” I turned my palms up. “You left that place less than a minute, maybe only a few seconds, before Fickler found Wallen dead!”
“I don’t know.” Carl wasn’t fazed. “I only know I went and I didn’t touch that man.”
“This,” I told Wolfe, “makes it even nicer. There was a slim chance we could get it that they left sooner.”
“Yes.” He regarded me. “It must be assumed that Wallen was alive when Ed left the booth, since that young woman — what’s her name?”
“Janet.”
“I call few men, and no women, by their first names. What’s her name?”
“That’s all I know, Janet. It won’t bite you.”
“Stahl,” Tina said. “Janet Stahl.”
“Thank you. Wallen was presumably alive when Ed left the booth, since Miss Stahl followed him. So Miss Stahl, who saw Wallen last, and Mr. Fickler, who reported him dead — manifestly they had opportunity. What about the others?”