Free The Ninth Man by Dorien Grey

lot, the house sat quite a distance back from the street and slightly above it. A brick sidewalk and stoop led to the paneled front door, which was adorned by a brass lion’s-head knocker.
    Ignoring the bell, I rapped the knocker three times, pleased by the solid, no-nonsense sound.
    The door opened almost immediately, and I got my first look at Mike Sibalitch—tall, slim, with short black hair. His dark-blue short-sleeved sport shirt and white pants accented his Slavic good looks.
    “Mr. Hardesty,” he said, opening the door wide, rather like a soldier shouldering arms. “Come in.”
    I entered the tiled foyer, and he closed the door before extending his hand. His handshake was firm and dry, and even before we stopped shaking, he was guiding me into the living room. We sat in a pair of wing-back chairs flanking the fireplace and facing one another over a glass-topped coffee table.
    “Things have been a madhouse around here since Gene’s death,” he said, taking a pack of cigarettes from his shirt pocket and offering me one, which I refused with a no-thanks head shake. “Insurance men, forms, papers; Gene’s brother in for a week from Miami. A real mess.”
    “You seem to be taking it all very well,” I observed.
    Sibalitch shrugged and picked up a lead-crystal lighter from beside a matching ashtray on the coffee table.
    “I don’t have much in the line of choices, do I?”
    “You and Mr. Harriman…Gene…were lovers, I gather?”
    He lit his cigarette, took a long drag, then held it away from him and stared at the glowing end for a moment before releasing the smoke in a slow, deliberate stream.
    “For two years, seven months, and twelve days,” he said. He looked up suddenly and met my eyes. “If that sounds saccharinely romantic, I can assure you it wasn’t meant to be. Ours wasn’t exactly a fairy-tale relationship, but it worked for us.”
    I nodded. “You were the one who found his body?”
    “Yeah,” he said with a sigh. “I came home and found him dead in bed. I thought he was sleeping, at first, but there’s something about being dead that doesn’t allow that illusion to last for long.”
    “Did the police tell you the cause of death?”
    “No,” he said, “I told them.”
    Surprised, I asked, “And that was…?”
    Neither his face nor his voice betrayed the slightest emotion.
    “Natural causes,” he said, as casually and noncommittally as though he were talking about computer circuits. “Gene had a serious case of rheumatic fever as a kid; it did a real number on his heart. He always said he wouldn’t live to see forty.”
    “And what did the cops say?”
    “Nothing. They must have believed me; they got into a huddle and talked among themselves for a few minutes, then they just looked around—to see if anything looked suspicious, I guess. They asked me if he ever used drugs, or if he’d been depressed, stuff like that. I told them no. Then the coroner came to take Gene away, and the cops left. I told them to check with Gene’s doctor.”
    “Did you happen to see the death certificate?”
    “Yeah, Gene’s brother showed it to me. It gave the cause of death as ‘respiratory arrest,’ which is pretty generic. I suppose it’s safe to say that if you stop breathing, you’re dead.” He tamped out the half-smoked cigarette in the ashtray and lit up another then sighed. “I guess I was lucky to have Gene as long as I did. Just wish it had been longer, but this sort of thing happens, I guess.”
    I got the impression that he, like Martin Bell, believed what he wanted to believe.
    “Did the police ask you any questions you thought were a little out of the ordinary?”
    He thought for a moment.
    “Not really. Other than asking if Gene or I had any access to any kind of poison. That was when I told them about Gene’s heart condition. When they were talking among themselves, I heard one say something about dusting for fingerprints—why in hell they’d have to do that I have