Free Murder Comes First by Frances and Richard Lockridge Page B

happen.”
    â€œGot not gotten” Pam automatically corrected in her mind, and then said that she supposed in a way they had. For some years, anyway, things had happened.
    That, Sandford told her, was precisely it. To him, nothing had, so that now it was all unreal.
    â€œYou jog along for years,” he said, “and nothing happens. Nobody pays any attention to you; you do an ordinary sort of job. Any day might be any day. You see what I mean?”
    Pam nodded, raised her glass, found it empty, put it down again. Sandford, without looking at him, motioned to the maître d’ and then to the empty glasses.
    â€œI work in this laboratory,” Sandford said. “Nothing important. Research, but not important. Not big stuff. I go home at night and Sally’s there. Maybe we go to a movie, maybe we go to the theater. We’ve got a little more money than most. That is, Sally has. But it’s all—ordinary. You never stop to think about it much. You see?”
    Pam nodded that she saw.
    â€œThen it goes smash,” he said. “Sally goes away somewhere and I’m damned if I know why. To ‘think things out.’ What the hell do you suppose she meant?”
    He seemed to expect an answer. Pam could say only that women got that way, sometimes.
    â€œSally?” he said, as if Pam knew her and could tell. But now he did not wait for an answer. “Then Grace gets killed,” he said. “Then you say somebody is following me. Me , for God’s sake?”
    The drinks came. Sandford drank most of his, seeming not to know what he did.
    â€œIt drives you nuts,” he said. “I’ve got to find out what’s going on.”
    There seemed to Pam North to be a kind of desperate anxiety in his voice; she felt he was trying to drag something out of her. But she felt there was nothing further in her to be dragged out.
    â€œApparently,” she said, “this man waited in the areaway for—oh, ten minutes. Fifteen. Smoked a couple of cigarettes. Then went. Anyway, that’s what Mullins thought.”
    He said it didn’t make any sense.
    â€œIt wasn’t the police,” Pam said. “I’m sure of that. Actually, Mr. Sandford—” She paused and after a moment he said, “Yes?”
    â€œI suppose the most likely thing,” Pam said, and spoke slowly, “is that your wife actually wants a divorce and has somebody following you to—well, to try to get evidence.”
    Sandford finished his drink. Then he spoke decisively.
    â€œI don’t believe that,” he said. “She couldn’t do a thing like that. Anyway, she—” he paused. “She knows better,” he finished.
    He had, Pam thought, at least convinced himself, probably because he wanted it that way. She finished her drink, thinking that all the same, the man probably had been hired by Mrs. Barton Sandford. She declined another drink, and they went up the stairs to the second floor dining room. She felt that Sandford continued to expect something more from her, some assuagement of his uneasiness, some explanation of what had happened. She hadn’t any.
    â€œThe FBI isn’t after you?” she said, after they had ordered.
    He laughed at that, said, “Not me” and then sobered quickly, urged another drink. Pam resisted temptation by a narrow margin.
    They talked, then, inevitably, about the murder of Grace Logan. Sandford wanted to know if Pam’s aunts were really worried, or had cause to worry.
    â€œI was around to see Paul this morning,” he said. “Rallying round. The kid’s broken up, of course. The cook, Hilda, told both of us about the Misses Whitsett at breakfast. The cops must be nuts.”
    Pam didn’t think the aunts were worried, or had cause to be, and Sandford reinforced this, heartily, with a “Hell no!” All the same, the cops were not necessarily nuts, Pam told him. The aunts had been