Free Murder by the Book by Frances and Richard Lockridge Page B

He went away and clattered ice.
    â€œActually,” Pam said, “birds are very nice, I think.”
    Jerry said, “Pelicans.”
    â€œDo you really mind so much?” Pam said.
    â€œI don’t see why it so often happens to us.”
    Pam nodded her head, indicating that she didn’t, either.
    â€œWe’re on vacation,” Jerry said. “Thanks.” This was to the bartender, in exchange for two stemmed glasses, which had lived in crushed ice before they were filled. “It follows us around.”
    â€œHomicide prone,” Pam agreed. “It’s a very good martini. There’s no point in blaming the pelicans. You mean you’re really not interested?”
    She looked at him, her eyes intent; she studied him.
    â€œOf course I am,” Jerry said. “Damn it.”
    â€œOf course,” Pam said. “Aside from everything else, he was a nice man. Nice to that poor Mrs. Payne. A nice man. And Bill more or less promised Mr. Jefferson we’d help.”
    â€œBill’s very free with—” Jerry said, and broke off and looked at Pam, who wore a sleeveless white dress, with a gold band circling either slender wrist. “All right,” Jerry said. “I’ll never feel the same about pelicans again, but all right. You don’t really think he killed himself?”
    Pam looked at her drink; raised it and sipped from it. She shook her head slowly.
    â€œNeither do I,” Jerry said. “Particularly not that way.”
    â€œBecause he was a doctor?”
    It was Jerry’s turn to shake his head. He said that, of course, one would expect a doctor to know an easier way of ending life. But it wasn’t that, or only partly that.
    â€œIt would be,” Jerry said, “a theatrical way to kill yourself. A—showy way. Like—oh, like standing on a ledge.”
    Pam North said, “Yes.”
    â€œIf that sort of thing’s in you,” Jerry said, “it comes out on a tennis court. Dramatizing. Acting it out as much as playing. You know what I mean. Piersal just hit tennis balls. Where the opposition wasn’t. To go out to the end of a pier—” He did not finish, except with lifted shoulders.
    â€œSuicide is a private matter,” Pam said. “Yes. You don’t force it on other people. I still wonder if poor Sheriff Jefferson found—”
    She stopped suddenly. “Poor” Deputy Sheriff Jefferson was coming down the staircase from the dining room. She hoped he hadn’t heard the “poor.” He did not look especially happy, but there might be other reasons for that.
    He came across to them. He said, “Mind if I join you a minute?” and sat down. He said, over his shoulder, “A beer, Charlie.” He said, to Pam, “You were right about the notebook.” He took a small black notebook out of his pocket, and opened it. He handed it, open, to Pam North. She looked at it.
    â€œThe light’s not very good,” Pam said.
    â€œIt isn’t the light,” Jefferson said.
    Pam put the little book on the table, where Jerry, too, could see it. Jerry looked at it. He said, “Hmmm.”
    â€œIt’s the way doctors are,” Pam said. “If it isn’t Latin, it’s this sort of thing. To keep things from laymen, What did he tell us, Jerry?”
    â€œNot much,” Jerry said. “That Mrs. Upton had a—” He snapped his fingers. “Stomach ache,” he said. “For which the medical can be ‘gastrointestinal upset.’ Or ‘g-i up.’ And that she’d had them before. Hence, ‘hist of.’ Since 1949?”
    â€œOr,” Pam said, “that could be her age. ‘Dehy’?”
    Jerry spread his hands. Jefferson reached for the book and turned it around and studied the entry. He said, “Dehydrated?” and turned it back. “I mean, if she had a really bad spell. Throwing up and—well.