I told Tolliver. “I wonder if he’s told the cops yet.”I introduced Rick to Tolliver as politely as if Rick had come to ask us to tea. But there was a muscle jumping in the private detective’s jaw, and his whole body was tense.“Can we have this talk somewhere a little more private?” he growled at me.Tolliver said, “That would be best, I think. Come with us.”The ride up in the elevator was silent and ominous.The maids had been in, and the room looked clean and welcoming, I was glad to see. There’s something kind of seedy in having guests in your hotel room when the evidence of your stay is strewn all around you in disorderly heaps; room service cart, crumpled newspapers, discarded books, a shoe here and there. I’d been enjoying having a sitting room at this hotel, though I never forgot I was paying for it through the nose.“You didn’t have to kill Nunley,” Rick Goldman said. “I know he was an obnoxious drunk, but he didn’t hurt you.” He switched his level gaze to Tolliver.
