Free Death Likes It Hot by Gore Vidal

Mildred first and then nearly drowned himself; how Claypoole pulled her to shore; how I rescued Brexton.
    He took all this down without comment. I could see he was wondering the same thing I’d begun to wonder: had Brexton had a chance to pull his wife under just before we got there? I couldn’t be absolutely sure because the surf had been in my eyes most of the way out and I hadn’t been able to see properly. I doubted it … if only because, when I reached them, Brexton was still several feet from his wife who was already half-dead. That Claypoole might have drowned her on the long pull back to shore was an equal possibility but I didn’t mention it to Greaves who didn’t ask me either. He was only interested in getting the eyewitness part straight.
    I asked a question then: “Just what effect would foursleeping pills have … four of the kind she took? Are they fatal?”
    He looked at me thoughtfully as though wondering whether to bother answering or not. Finally, he said: “They weren’t enough to kill her. Make her weak, though, groggy … they slowed down the beating of the heart.”
    “Well, that explains the funny way she swam. I thought the others were just sounding off when they said she was such a fine athlete. She almost fell on her face in her first dive into the surf and her strokes were all off … even I could tell that and Im no coach.”
    “There’s no doubt she died as a result of weakness. She wasn’t strong enough to get out of the undertow. The question of course is why, if she’d taken the pills herself, would she’ve gone in the water instead of to bed where she belonged?”
    “To kill herself?” This was the puzzle, I knew.
    “A possibility.”
    “But then somebody might’ve slipped her those pills, knowing she would probably go swimming.”
    “Another possibility.” Greaves was enigmatic.
    “But how could anybody count on that happening? She wasn’t feeling well … maybe she would’ve just stayed on the shore in the sun. From what I saw of her that would’ve been
my
guess. I was even surprised, now that I look back, that she went in the ocean at all.”
    “The person who gave her the pills might have known her better than you. He might’ve known she would go in the water no matter what her condition.” Greaves made notes while he talked.
    “And the person who knew her best was, of course, her husband.”
    Greaves looked at me steadily. “I didn’t say that.”
    “Who else? Even so, if I were Brexton and I wanted to kill my wife, I wouldn’t do it like that, with everybody else around.”
    “Fortunately, you’re not Brexton.” The coldness in his voice gave me all the clue I needed. The police thought Brextonhad killed his wife. I don’t know why but even then I didn’t think he was responsible. I suppose because my mind dislikes the obvious even though the obvious, as any detective will tell you, nine times out of ten provides the answer.
    I threw one last doubt in his path. “Why, if somebody was going to give her the pills, didn’t they give her a fatal dose?”
    “We must find that out.” Greaves was reasonable, polite, bored with me.
    Wanting to attract his attention for future need, I said, coolly, “I’ll be writing about all this for the
New York Globe.
”
    This had the effect I intended. He winced visibly. “I thought you were in public relations, Mr. Sargeant.”
    “I used to be on the
Globe.
In the last few years I’ve done some features for them. I guess you remember that business a couple of years back when Senator Rhodes was murdered.…”
    Greaves looked at me with some interest. “You’re
that
fellow? I remember the case.”
    “I was, if I say so myself, of some use to the police.”
    “That wasn’t the way I heard it.”
    This was irritating. “Well, no matter how you heard it, I intend to do a series on this case for the
Globe
, assuming there really was a murder done, which I doubt.”
    “Very interesting.” Greaves