Murder by the Book (10 page)

Jefferson found Dr. Tucker Upton. He was sitting at the far end of the porch, near nobody, smoking a pipe. He did not look at Jefferson when Jefferson came up. Jefferson said, “Dr. Upton?” and the gray-haired man in the dark suit still did not look at him. Jefferson said it again and this time Upton said “Yes. What do you want?” There was no life in his voice, no interest in his voice. He didn't care at all what Ronald Jefferson wanted.

“Hate to bother you at a time like this,” Jefferson said, and Upton said nothing and did not look at Jefferson—looked toward the ocean beyond palm trees which swayed gently in a faint, soft breeze. Varicolored lights shone on the palm trees.

Jefferson told the silent man who he was. He said he was investigating the death of Dr. Piersal.

“I didn't know him,” Upton said. “I can't help you, sheriff. I knew his reputation, of course. Knew he was a good doctor. Oh—met him once, for a few minutes, at a medical convention.”

He still did not look at Jefferson. Jefferson pulled a chair up.

“Yesterday,” Jefferson said, “he had a look at your wife, doctor. Mr. Grogan asked him to.”

“I know,” Upton said. “There wasn't anything he could do. Nothing anybody could do for my wife.” He still spoke dully. Then he seemed to rouse himself. He said, “Why do you bring that up? It hasn't anything to do with his death. How could it have?”

Jefferson said he didn't know. He said he did not suppose it had any. He said that “they”—the policeman's invaluable, unidentified “they”—would want everything checked out, even things which obviously had nothing to do with murder.

“They want to have a record of everything a man does before he's killed,” Jefferson said. “Who he saw. Who he talked to. Nine tenths of it doesn't mean anything, but that's how they want it. Way I understand it, Mr. Grogan asked Dr. Piersal to have a look at Mrs. Upton because the hotel doctor wasn't available. Sick or something.”

“Poor old Townsend,” Upton said absently. He did not say why he thought Dr. Townsend “poor” or how old Dr. Townsend might be. “Yes, Grogan told me about it. Considerate of him. Of Piersal too, of course. I still don't see …”

Jefferson said, again, that he didn't see either. He said, again, that he hated to bother Dr. Upton at a time like this.

“Dr. Piersal made some notes,” he said. “Apparently about your wife, doctor. Don't mean much to me. At the end, something which may mean he planned to talk to you about her. I wonder if you—hate to ask this—Would have a look at his notes. Mean something to you, maybe.”

Upton drew on his pipe. It gurgled and he knocked it empty against an ash-tray rim. He put it in his pocket.

“I know what the doctor found,” he said. “Acute gastrointes—stomach upset. She had them at intervals, poor Florence. Nerves as much as anything. Hyperacidity. She didn't die of that, sheriff. Her heart gave out.”

He paused, looked at the lighted palm trees.

“My wife,” he said, “was a sick woman. Bad heart. Diabetes. These recurrent digestive attacks on top of everything else. There wasn't anything anybody could do—hadn't been for years. Oh, the things which would keep her alive—insulin. Digitalis tablets on a maintenance basis. She found it restful here, and we came here whenever we could. It was—had been for half a dozen years—a matter of keeping her as comfortable as possible. And … waiting.”

He did not look at Jefferson; looked toward the ocean, looked at nothing. Jefferson gave him time.

“But if you want me to,” Upton said, “I'll look at the doctor's notes.”

They went inside where there was light. The big lobby was deserted; guests were at dinner. Upton read the notations in the little book.

“Nothing obscure about it,” Upton said. “He looked her over, listened to her. Gastrointestinal upset. Dehydrated and thirsty. Probably advised her against drinking too much water. Especially cold water. Told her to stay on a bland diet and said she ought to have a G.I. series. Had one six months ago. Didn't show anything. Doesn't in cases like hers—functional cases.”

“He planned to confer with you,” Jefferson said. “Anyway, I guess that's what the last notes meant.”

“Probably,” Upton said. “Matter of professional courtesy. Tell me what he found. Didn't get a chance, poor chap.”

“By the way, doctor,” Jefferson said, “did you treat your wife for—for these things that were the matter with her?”

Upton shook his head, patiently. “Doctors don't treat their own people,” he said. “Except in emergencies, of course. I gave her insulin shots when I could, because she hated to give them to herself. Most of them do. She had her own doctor—good man. Head of medicine at the West Side in Miami. Anyway, I'm a surgeon, you know.”

Jefferson said, “Hmmm.” He said, “This ‘s-l' note. Any idea what it means?”

“She had a slow heart beat,” Upton said. “Rate of beat varies with individuals, you know. And, of course, digitalis slows the beat, strengthens it. What it's for. She may have taken a tablet before he saw her.”

“And he administered something,” Jefferson said. “Intravenously? That what that means?”

“I don't know,” Upton said. “Some sort of anticonvulsant, probably. By injection because he thought she wouldn't be able to keep down anything given orally.”

He spoke with a certain detachment, as a physician. He had looked at Jefferson as he talked to him. But now his eyes lost focus, his voice sank.

“She often couldn't when she had these attacks,” he said, dully. “Doesn't seem fair, does it—that with all the other things this—this unrelated—” He shook his head slowly. “She never had any luck,” he said. “No luck.”

He did not go on. Jefferson waited for some seconds, and then said it, because it had to be said.

“Doctor,” Jefferson said, “you're quite satisfied that your wife died of a heart attack?”

It seemed for a moment that Dr. Upton, his mind far away, his mind in the past, did not hear him. Then he said, “What?” and Jefferson started to repeat what he had said, but Upton interrupted him. He said, “Of course. What do you mean?”

“All right,” Jefferson said. “This is—I don't put any stock in this. But somebody suggested Dr. Piersal might have given your wife something that was bad for her, and realized it afterward and—well, killed himself. In remorse, sort of.”

Upton said, “For God's sake,” in a tone of amazed disbelief. He said, “Whoever got a cockeyed idea like …” He did not finish. He merely looked at Jefferson.

“We've got to check out a lot of theories,” Jefferson said. “Cockeyed or not. From the look of things, Piersal could have killed himself.”

“Sheriff,” Upton said, “I didn't know Dr. Piersal personally, as I told you. I do know his reputation. He was one of the best men in his field in the country. Internal medicine was his field. For God's sake, man. He was treating my wife for—my God, for an upset tummy. You mean to say …?”

“Don't mean to say anything,” Jefferson said. “I agree it sounded cockeyed. But—I suppose he could have made some sort of a mistake, couldn't he? Injected something that was bad for her, in her condition? Or—just the wrong thing?”

“I think,” Dr. Upton said, “that you're slandering a dead man. Of course, he
could
have. I'd say the chance was several millions to one against. But …”

He did not go on, but he continued to look at Deputy Sheriff Jefferson. His eyes were a little narrowed.

“There would be things which would be fatal?”

“Dozens,” Upton said. “Things that would kill anyone, let alone a sick woman.”

“But you've no doubt your wife died of a heart—”

“Wait a minute,” Upton said. “That's a silly question to ask a doctor, sheriff. She was dead when I found her—when I got back here from Miami. I operated there yesterday, stayed overnight at the apartment. About ten o'clock I got back—maybe a little before. She was dead. She might have died any time, and I knew that she, poor dear, knew it too. There was nothing to indicate that it wasn't her heart. Everything to make me think it was.”

“Including,” Jefferson said, “the fact that you'd been expecting it? I don't like to be insistent. But—look at it this way. If there's an outside chance Dr. Piersal wasn't murdered. That he took his own life—”

“I don't think there's a chance in a million.”

“I don't, either,” Jefferson said. “But you see the point. Be bad if we made a mistake—got a lot of evidence against somebody when it was really the doctor himself. Bad the other way, too. If this theory got spread about, I mean. Or if some defense attorney came up with it and saw it was spread around. Can't hurt the doctor any more but—well, all the same. You said ‘slander.' You can slander a man's memory.”

“What you're getting at,” Upton said, “you want my permission to have an autopsy performed.”

“I guess that's it,” Jefferson said. “It's a thing I hate to ask—”

“My dear man,” Upton said. “I'm a surgeon. Bodies aren't sacred. My wife lives—” He touched his forehead with the fingers of his right hand. “Here,” he said. “Not in her …” He paused, and there was a break in his voice. “Her poor, worn-out body. I think it's a waste of time. Your pathologist, if he's any good—”

“He's good from all I hear.”

“All right. He'll find a badly degenerated heart, probably with the final lesions. May find digitalis in her stomach—she was taking the tablets and sometimes there are traces. They'll find she had diabetes—” He spread his hands, suddenly. “All right,” he said. “I don't object, sheriff.”

Jefferson had not expected so ready an acceptance. The idea of an autopsy horrified a good many people. It was understandable, of course, that a doctor might not feel horror. Jefferson thought it went further than that—that, at the moment, there were very few things Dr. Tucker Upton cared about at all; that all there was in his mind was a great loneliness.

It was just as well, of course, that Dr. Upton did not raise objection. With nothing really to suggest that Mrs. Upton's death had been from anything but natural causes, Jefferson might well have met difficulty in getting a court order. As it was, the pathologist, old Dr. Meister, would snort, would probably have several things to say about diligent young cops, who didn't care how much work they caused other people.

Jefferson said he appreciated Dr. Upton's attitude, and that he would make arrangements and let him know about them. It did not seem to him that the gray-haired, square-faced man really listened. Jefferson stood up, and remembered something.

“Your wife was dead when you found her,” he said. “About ten or a little before. Can you tell me how long she'd been dead, doctor?”

Dr. Upton came back, it seemed to Deputy Sheriff Jefferson, from a long distance. He said, “Not long. Nobody can tell exactly. I'd say not more than fifteen minutes. Half an hour at most. If I'd left Miami half an hour earlier—” He shook his head slowly. “But,” he said, “it wouldn't have made any difference. There aren't any miracles, sheriff.”

8

Pamela North said she did hope that Stilts and Shadow were all right, the poor dears, and that she felt guilty about them. This the first remark of any kind—aside from a passing reference to a need for more butter—Pam had made during dinner. It was, of course, an entirely clear remark.

Stilts and Shadow are the Norths' cats. They were in the New York apartment, adequately fed and cared for, probably bored stiff. What their busy claws would have done to furniture did not bear thinking about, and hence was not thought about. One has cats or untattered furniture; one does not have both.

It was clear. Pam felt, momentarily, guilty about her cats. But Jerry sought a context, feeling sure that one must be there. One almost always was, if one could only find it. It might have been left a hop, skip and jump behind, since Pam's mind skips rather more than some, but it would surely be there. Jerry thought, briefly.

Pam had been silent through dinner. She had done a good deal of looking around. Looking for cats? It seemed hardly possible. Looking at people coming into, walking out of, the big dining room of The Coral Isles; at waitresses carrying trays in and at bus boys carrying trays out again.

“They're a good deal alike, when you think about it,” Pam said.

This was not at all clear. Stilts and Shadow are not alike, except in being cats, and Siamese. Stilts walks high and leads; Shadow is a long, low cat, structurally somewhat resembling a dachshund, a comparison which is never made in her presence. Stilts dances confidently through a world which is under her paws; Shadow lives in constant apprehension that something dire will come down on her from above. She is also haunted by the idea that Stilts will go away and leave her.

“Well,” Jerry said, “they're both cats, of course. And both seal points. On the other hand—”

“Not the cats, Jerry,” Pam said, and was patient. “What ever made you think I meant the cats?”

Jerry considered this briefly. He said, “Well—”

“Shadow and this Rebecca Payne,” Pam said. “Always expecting the worst. That every man's hand is against them. Hiding under beds.”

It was, Jerry decided, a safe assumption that, as regarded Rebecca Payne, Pam spoke figuratively. Beds were things Shadow consistently hid under, especially after she had managed to filch a lamb chop. That Mrs. Payne—

“It might explain it,” Pam said. “Irrational distrust. Of strangers, of course. At least in Shadow's case.”

Shadow trusts the Norths, at least when they are not using brooms to get her from under beds.

“The frightened,” Pam said, “flee when no man pursueth.”

“The word,” Jerry said, “is ‘wicked,' Pam. Anyway, Deputy Sheriff Jefferson pursueth. At least, I guess he does.”