Murder by the Book (16 page)

“No,” Pam said. “And hasn't been.”

“A friend you're sure is in Key West somewhere, but you don't know where?”

“She wrote and told me,” Pam said. “But I lost the letter. And we're leaving tomorrow and I do want to say hello before we have to say good-bye. They were very nice about it. Sorry she wasn't. Let's see what this one's like.”

The Key Ambassador was like an affluent two-story motel, without villas, but with screened porches and a large swimming pool in the front yard. Mrs. Peter Coleman was not registered at the Key Ambassador, and had not been. Mrs. Coleman had also not been at the Howard Johnson Lodge or at Holiday House.

“There are,” Jerry said, “probably a hundred motels in Key West. We told Jefferson about Mrs. Coleman. Anyway, it's a pretty wild—”

“I know,” Pam said. “But Sheriff Jefferson has sold himself. On this Mr. Worthington. He doesn't really want any new theories.”

“This one being precisely—where the hell do you think you're going?”

The last was to a fellow motorist, who also was going downtown on Roosevelt Boulevard, which was about to become Truman Avenue. Pam ignored it, as did the fellow motorist.

“Either,” Pam said, “she actually saw her mother kill Dr. Piersal or found his body and knew her mother was here and put two and two together. So she got hold of mother and took her to Miami and put her on a train. Or a bus. Not an airplane, because then you give names. And, of course, got her hair done so this beachboy-waiter wouldn't recognize her. And found us last night so she could try out her story about driving up to Miami to get away from it all to see how it went over. And to be very surprised that Dr. Piersal was dead, of course. I thought for a moment, by the way, you were going to scare her off. Because you almost pointed out she had wondered
who
killed him, when she wasn't supposed to know anybody had, and an accident is always more likely.”

Jerry said, “Oh.”

Roosevelt Boulevard became Truman Avenue and narrowed and they crept in traffic, the sun beating on them, the air barely stirring. “Convertibles always
seem
like such a nice idea,” Pam said, and at the next red light Jerry put the top up. They turned left in Simonton, toward a place where motels nestle, offering private beaches or beach privileges. They found a place to park. “You take some and I'll take some,” Pam suggested, and they went about it, Jerry feeling a good deal like a door-to-door salesman, peddling somewhat spurious merchandise. He also felt that they were both chasing “a wild goose.

The luck was Pam's, as was proper. Jerry came out of the third motel which was sorry it had never heard of a Mrs. Peter Coleman—although it had had a Mrs. Roger Coleman in January—and Pam was waiting.

“There's where she was,” Pam said, and pointed across the street.

“There” was “The Bougainvillia,” with the flowers to prove it. Into The Bougainvillia Mrs. Peter Coleman had checked Friday, shortly after the arrival of the morning plane from Miami. Out of it she had checked Sunday morning, at a little after nine.

Pam had said how sorry she was to have missed her old friend and had expressed the hope, against hope, that it might be another Mrs. Peter Coleman; had said, “Dark hair? Not quite as tall as I am? Maybe asked about the greyhound races at Stock Island?” The Mrs. Coleman who had left Sunday morning—“although we'd thought she planned to stay on until the middle of the week”—was as described. And Friday night she had asked about the dog races, and got a cab to take her to them.

Pam hoped Deputy Sheriff Jefferson wouldn't be too sold on this Worthington-something to listen. They drove toward the county building to give him a chance.

Dr. Ferdinand Meister sounded testy on the telephone. He usually sounded testy, on the telephone or face to face.

He said, “This Upton cadaver. What were you looking for?”

Deputy Sheriff Jefferson said, “Cause of death, doctor.”

He was asked if he had any idea what a long, dull, messy operation a thorough post-mortem is? He was told that, from what Dr. Meister knew of the history, a thoroughly competent man had already told him the cause of death. Jefferson said he was sorry, doctor. He almost said that he had called up to tell them they could forget about the autopsy, but managed not to say it. That wouldn't improve Dr. Meister's temper.

“All right,” Dr. Meister said, “she died of heart disease. Of some standing, apparently. Her heart was hypertrophied. There was a subendocardial hemorrhage on the left side of the interventricular septum. Follow me?”

Dr. Meister knows damn well I don't follow him, Jefferson thought. He said, “Near enough, I guess. It was her heart, then?”

Dr. Meister snorted. He wanted to know what Jefferson thought he had just been saying. Jefferson said, “I'm sorry, doctor.”

“In addition,” Dr. Meister said, “she was a diabetic. She'd been taking insulin for that. She'd been taking digitalis for her heart—tablets. Found fragments in the stomach. She had arthritis, too. Had damn near everything people can have, the poor old girl.”

The number of things people can have, and that medicine can't stop, was what made Dr. Ferdinand Meister testy. Jefferson knew that; everybody who knew Dr. Meister knew that. At moments, Dr. Meister even knew it himself.

“Anything wrong with her stomach?” Jefferson asked.

“No,” Meister said. “Gastrointestinal tract pretty well normal. About the only thing in her that was, poor old girl. Liver—I can't say much for her liver. Wouldn't have cared to have had her gall bladder myself. Why? About her stomach?”

Jefferson told Dr. Meister about Mrs. Upton's upset stomach, about Dr. Piersal's treatment of it; about the intravenous injection that Dr. Upton thought probably had been of an anticonvulsant.

“Dramamine, probably,” Meister said. “Very quieting stuff, you know. Enough of it, and you go to sleep.”

“Permanently?”

“Son,” Dr. Meister said, “enough of damn near anything will put you to sleep permanently. Sure, I suppose Dramamine would. Never heard of its being used that way, but probably it would. So would too much insulin. So would too much digitalis, come to that. Or alcohol or …” He paused. “You say her stomach was upset?”

“Yes. That's what I hear.”

“Bad?”

Jefferson gathered it had been pretty bad. Bad enough for her to call in a doctor. He said, “You mean she'd been drinking too much?”

Meister said, “What?” He said, “For God's sake, son. No—no alcohol in the blood. There's this—an overdose of digitalis makes people sick at the stomach. Very sick. Usually throw it up before it does any real harm—before it kills them. But it can make them pretty damn sick, son. If she took too many tablets …” He did not finish. Jefferson waited. He said, finally, “Just what is digitalis, doctor?”

“Glucoside,” Dr. Meister said, helping Jefferson very little. “Powdered leaves of foxglove. Heart stimulant. Get somebody with rhythm disturbance and digitalis slows the beat down and strengthens it. Too much, and it slows it too much. Also you get nausea and thirsty as hell and maybe delirious. Maybe you even die. Not many do, because they throw it up. Get diarrhea, too. Still—people have died of it.”

“Taking too many tablets?”

“Could be,” Meister said. “People have killed themselves that way. Doing it a hard way.”

“Could Mrs. Upton—”

“Now, son,” Dr. Meister said, “how the hell would I know? She was taking digitalis, which was indicated for her heart condition. If she hadn't had a bad heart, and I found digitalis—well, I'd wonder like hell. But she did have. So—the autopsy shows she died of heart disease, with a hell of a lot of complications.” He paused. “One hell of a lot,” he said, sadly.

He was wasting time, Jefferson thought. He had his man; had him locked up. Still, there was no point in letting contrary theories float around loose.

“Doctor,” he said, “if you'd treated her—when she was sick at her stomach, I mean—would you have wondered about digitalis?”

“She had a history of this sort of upset?” Meister said. “Gastrointestinal upset? Nervous indigestion?”

“Her husband says so.”

“Then I doubt very much I'd have gone beyond that. Or that any doctor would.”

“Dr. Piersal?”

“Look, son,” Meister said. “I wasn't there. Remember? I don't know what he found, except that she was sick. He was one of the best internal medicine men in the country, and if he'd suspected anything else he'd have taken steps. Seems he just treated symptoms. So, it looked to him like a nervous stomach. So, about a thousand to one, that was what it was.”

For that, Jefferson was entirely willing to settle. He considered. “I've got things to do, son,” Meister said.

“Insulin,” Jefferson said. “You said too much—”

“Son,” Meister said, with great patience, “the poor old girl died of heart disease. If she took too much digitalis too, it can't be proved by autopsy. But I can tell you this—she didn't die of insulin shock. Normal glucose value in the blood. Normal for her condition, anyway. She was about due for another shot, in fact. She needed a couple of shots a day, I'd guess. So, son?”

Jefferson said, “Thanks, doctor. Sorry to have wasted your time.”

“Oh,” Dr. Meister said, “that seems to be what it's for, son.”

Jefferson hung up. He looked at his watch. Deputy Williams drove like a bat out of hell. Jefferson decided he'd go down and see what luck the boys had had in rounding up half a dozen thinnish men with narrow shoulders who were not markedly disfigured in any way and who had shaved recently.

Pam and Jerry North arrived five minutes after he had left his office. They left a message to the effect that Mrs. Peter Coleman, who had certainly had a grudge against Dr. Edmund Piersal, had been in Key West at least until nine o'clock Sunday morning, and that she had, apparently, left town sooner than she had first planned.

Miss Phyllis Farmer was a pretty little thing, in a fluffy sort of way. She said, “But goodness, I'm
on
at lunch.”

Deputy Sheriff Williams had fixed that up with Mr. Hunter. He said he had fixed that up with Mr. Hunter. She said, “Oh, that,” dismissing that. She said he apparently didn't realize that a girl had to make a living. She said that the season was short enough as it was, and another thing he didn't realize was that Hunter's Lodge wasn't American plan. With American plan it was one thing, because they didn't really pay any attention if a girl was off for a meal or two, but with European plan it was another. If you weren't there, you were out of luck.

Williams considered this briefly and said, “Oh. You're thinking about tips.”

She had blue eyes. She widened them in astonishment. She said, what did he think she was talking about, for heaven's sake?

Williams said that maybe they could make it up to her, and that anyway he'd see, personally, that she had her own lunch on the county. She said that lunch didn't cost her anything here, for heaven's sake, and that anyway it didn't matter one way or another, because she always ate like a bird and usually just passed up lunch. She said it might come to six or seven dollars, and that a girl had to live.

Williams was considerably inclined to tell her to come off it, because six or seven dollars came to quite a lot of quarters, and that was what they tipped in—quarters. At lunch, anyway. On the other hand, he couldn't make her ride down to Key West, short of arresting her, which had not been suggested, and she looked like a girl who could get her back up—like a girl who knew her rights.

“I guess the county could go to five bucks,” he said, sticking his neck out.

“I can't go like this,” Miss Phyllis Farmer said, looking at herself. She wore a white dress and white shoes, as a waitress should. “For heaven's
sake,”
she added.

He waited while she changed. She changed to tapered slacks, which was all right with Williams, in view of her legs, and a blouse and a white sweater with sequins on it. She also put a red scarf over her blond hair. On the Seven Mile Bridge she said, “You certainly drive fast, for heaven's sake,” but in a tone of approval. On Stock Island, she said, “Has this thing got a siren?” He proved it had. She said, “For heaven's
sake.”

“This is Miss Farmer,” Williams told Chief Deputy Jefferson at the office. “She's the one. Says she doesn't know whether she can or not.”

“One of them is just like another,” Phyllis said. “You know how it is.” Williams waited, expectant. “For heaven's sake,” Phyllis added, faithful in her fashion.

Jefferson did understand. The man had, he thought, had breakfast alone. She had served him. The check proved that—after the printed “Your waitress is:———” she had written “Phyllis.” Williams had brought the check along and they showed it to her. She said of course that was her name. She looked at the slip more carefully. She said, “Maybe I can, at that.”

The boys had been able to round up only four men of the requested size and shape. They did not look much alike. On the other hand, they did not look too much un-alike. Worthington-Bradley made five, and they put him in the middle. The whole business seemed to amuse him, mildly.

The girl looked at them carefully, one by one. It seemed to Jefferson, watching, that she looked longest at Jasper Bradley. His hope diminished. But she looked for some time, too, at the man at the end of the line. Then she turned to Jefferson, and then she shook her brightly scarfed head.

“It wasn't any one of them, for heaven's sake,” Miss Phyllis Farmer said, and Ronald Jefferson's spirits jumped.

“I'm sorry,” the girl said.

“That's all right,” Jefferson told her. There was no point in stressing just how all right it was. “You're sure, though?”