Murder by the Book by Frances and Richard Lockridge Page A

and saw him and—had an impulse.”
    â€œHaven’t you asked her?” Pam said. “You could put it tactfully. ‘Mrs. Payne, did you happen to stick a knife into Dr. Piersal this morning?’”
    â€œShe’s not at the hotel,” Jefferson said. “Doesn’t mean a damn thing, probably. Maybe she’s at the Aquarium looking at the fish. Maybe she’s on one of the tour trains, looking at us Conchs. Maybe she’s out on the public beach. Maybe she doesn’t know that Piersal’s been killed, even.”
    â€œYou’re looking for her?”
    Jefferson sighed again. He said Key West wasn’t like New York. He said they didn’t have a hundred men to turn loose on it—to turn loose on anything. Or ten men. He said the city police had a description of her and if they ran across her—“when they’re not tagging cars”—they’d tell her the sheriff’s office would like to see her.
    â€œAnd the old man’s out in that boat of his—” Jefferson began, and his telephone rang. He said, “Sheriff’s office. Deputy Sheriff Jefferson.” He listened. He said, “That’s a note, Tommy.” He said, “The hell he is.” He said, “I sure as hell would, Tommy,” and listened further and said, “Yeah,” and hung up.
    â€œCity police,” he said. “Picked up a con man Miami wants. Man who says his name’s Worthington, only it isn’t. Miami says he’s named Bradley and used to be a lawyer in New York, and got out of stir a year or so ago after serving time on a manslaughter rap.”
    The Norths’ attention was polite.
    â€œAnd,” Jefferson said, and his voice was pleased now, “here’s one for the book. It was Dr. Piersal’s testimony sent him up. State expert. Bradley said it was one way, and Piersal proved it couldn’t have been—anyway, convinced the jury it couldn’t have been.” He paused again. “Something,” he said, and now satisfaction was evident in his tone, “about the angle of the knife. The knife Bradley used that time.”
    The Norths considered.
    â€œOf course,” Pam said, “clichés get to be that way because they earn their keep.” They both looked at her. Jerry felt his right hand creeping upward toward his head, where there is hair to run bewildered fingers through. “A stitch in time,” Pam said, “probably does save nine. And it’s no doubt true about rolling stones.”
    Deputy Sheriff Ronald Jefferson looked at Pamela North with widened eyes. Jerry could see the young man’s hands tighten on the edge of his desk.
    â€œRevenge is sweet,” Pam said.
    Jerry took fingers from his hair.
    â€œBut it may be only prejudice on my part,” Pam said.
    Jerry put them back.
    â€œIt’s just,” Pam said, “that I’ve never really been able to believe in it. It seems so—unreasonable.”
    â€œMurder is unreasonable,” Jerry said, and Pam shook her head.
    â€œNot murder,” she said. “It can seem to make sense, I suppose. It’s murderers who are unreasonable.”
    â€œI tell you, Mrs. North,” Ronald Jefferson said, “you’ve lost me, I guess.”
    Pam felt she had been clear. She did not, on the whole, see how she could have been much clearer. Which meant, of course, that there was no reason to go on with that.
    â€œMr. Grogan will be pleased,” Pam said. “If it is this Mr. Bradley. Or Worthington or whatever. Murder is bad enough for a hotel, probably. But if it’s guest by guest it’s probably worse. Mr. Worthington and Mr. Ashley were staying somewhere else.”
    Jefferson admitted there was that. He said that it had, all around, been a bad day for poor Grogan, what with that Mrs. Upton added on.
    â€œWhat Mrs. Upton?” Jerry said, and got ready to stand up. It began to look