Murder by the Book (2 page)

He sat in the lobby, reading the
Herald
. The world wagged as gloomily as ever, but for the most part on the second page. There had been a three-car smashup on Biscayne Boulevard. Somebody had managed to drive off the Sunshine Turnpike at an estimated ninety. The mysterious disappearance of “heiress” remained mysterious.

The alarm clock which ticks in proper husbands tinkled in Jerry's mind. Of Pam's minute, fifteen had elapsed. He went into the dining room and was led to a table by a window. He ordered orange juice, in honor of the state, and coffee, in pursuance of a mounting need. They, and Pam, arrived simultaneously. Pam was dressed for tennis. She carried mail.

There was a large brown envelope with “North Books, Inc.,” and an address in the upper left-hand corner. Jerry North sighed, the sigh of a man pursued. He put the envelope in his pocket. There was a letter with “Mrs. William Weigand” and an address printed on the flap. Dorian Weigand wrote in envy. Bill Weigand wrote a postscript: “Murders routine. Regards cordial.”

“So we'll know we're not missing anything,” Pam said. “Nice of Bill.”

“Dull days at Homicide West,” Jerry said, and knew that the days there were never really dull; that Captain William Weigand was not finding that time hung heavy. Homicide is endemic in Manhattan, West Side or East. It was pleasant to think that here, as far south as one could get in the United States, only fish would die by violence—fish, and of course motorists.

They finished breakfast. The New York
Times
and the
Herald Tribune
had not arrived. “Terrible weather up there,” the girl at the newsstand said, happily. “I understand all the planes are grounded.” On the porch they divided the Miami
Herald
, which is susceptible to almost infinite subdivision. People in bathing suits walked in front of them. Most of the women carried enormous bags, and most of these were made of brightly colored straw. The men wore straw hats of peculiar shapes and colors or, for variety, yachting caps. The man who had been watering crab grass had changed his hose for a power mower, which smoked furiously. A young man and a girl walked, hand in hand, up the slight slope to the swimming pool and, still hand in hand, dived in. A small boy with a tennis racket walked by, bound for a lesson.

“We've got a date at ten-thirty with that nice doctor and Rebecca somebody,” Pam said. Jerry pushed aside a light film of sleep and said he hadn't forgotten. At a quarter after ten he said, no, he still hadn't forgotten, and went up to their room to change. As was inevitable, the maid was in the room. She accepted intrusion with tight-lipped politeness and went with the air of one who would try, but not desperately, to come back and finish up.

Pam was sitting under the awning at the tennis courts, beside a tall, spare man. As Jerry came up she said, “Called Teddy and Freddy for some reason. Here he is now.”

The spare man turned in his chair and then stood up, and Jerry said, “Morning, doctor,” to Dr. Edmund Piersal who said, “Good morning, Mr. North. Not so much wind today.”

The day before, when they had first met at the courts, looked at each other appraisingly, in the manner of tennis players, and agreed to hit a few, it had been windy. High hedges of evergreens beyond the wire netting around the courts gave some shelter. It was still windy. And Dr. Piersal had been too good, but not too overwhelmingly too good. (6–3.) Piersal had said, “Off your game, I imagine,” and Jerry had not too openly accepted this judgment, but had not entirely rejected it. “Haven't played since September,” was his nonrejection. “Not that you wouldn't take me any time.”

Which had been true yesterday, and probably would be today. Piersal was several inches over six feet, which is no disadvantage in tennis; he was lean and tanned. He was also, at Jerry's guess, in his early sixties. There was more gray than black in his thick hair; there were deep lines in his thin, firm face. (“A man of distinction, except he looks too bright for it,” Pam had said, when they reviewed the previous day over cocktails.) Dr. Piersal also had a good backhand.

Jerry sat down; already the shade was pleasant. (Mr. Grogan, specialist in resort hotels, was also pretty good about the weather.)

“She ought to be along soon,” Dr. Piersal said. He had a quiet voice. “No idea what sort of game she plays.”

Pickup tennis at a resort hotel is hit or miss. The day before, Rebecca something—Jerry groped; Rebecca Payne—had merely sat and watched, although she had been dressed for tennis. She had watched through black eyes, set deeply in a thinnish face; she had watched, Jerry thought, wistfully. Such other women as came to the courts came paired. After some time of watching, she had tucked her racked under her arm and gone away, walking quickly and Well and as if she were going some place. (I'm afraid she isn't, really, Pam North had thought.)

It was Dr. Piersal who had set up the mixed doubles for which, sitting in the awning shade, they now waited. “Ran into that dark girl,” he had said the afternoon before, running into Jerry in the lobby. “All by herself, apparently. You and your wife like to take us on tomorrow?”

They watched a small boy taking a tennis lesson on the far court. Larry Saunders was tall and patient in mid-court, with a big basket, half full of gray tennis balls, at his feet. “Stay away from it, Jamie,” Saunders said, and bounced another ball to forehand. “That's better.”

Jamie hit the ball over the backstop. “Not quite so hard, Jamie,” Saunders said. “Take your time.” He bounced another ball. Jamie hit it; Jerry reached in front of Pam and caught it, and threw it back. Both courts were littered with gray tennis balls. “Move up on it if you have to, Jamie,” Saunders said. “That a boy.” Jamie hit a ball toward the curiously shaped building which was, Jerry had found out the day before, an outsize cistern. It dated back to the days when Key West lived by water which dripped from roofs. The Navy fed its thirst now, by pipeline from distant Homestead.

“I'm so sorry,” Rebecca Payne said. “Zipper.” She indicated the zipper on her white shorts. “I brought some balls,” she said, a little hurriedly. She took off a blue jacket and began to twist the ribbon of metal from the top of a can of tennis balls. “I'm afraid I'm not any good,” she said. “I'll spoil your game, probably. But the doctor said—”

“You can't,” Pam said, “be worse than I am.”

This proved inaccurate. Rebecca Payne was slim and quick, and she had had lessons. But she was obviously very tense, very—“embarrassed” is the word, Pam thought, and hit a wicked drop shot foor. Piersal's consideration. It was touch and go. “I I'm afraid,” Dr. Piersal said, gasping slightly.

A good many men would, under the circumstances, hog the court, Pam thought. All tennis players prefer to win, and that is the way for Piersal and Rebecca Payne to win. And it would have been a way to tell Rebecca Payne what, too evidently, she already knew—that, on a tennis court, she was not to be trusted; that here she could not, really, stand on her own two feet. It would have been a way to humiliate her.

A nice man, Pam thought. A really nice man. She gave the nice man another drop shot to try for. “You are,” Dr. Piersal said, with apparent delight, “an evil woman.” He said, “I'm sorry, partner,” to Rebecca, who shook her head and flushed deeply. She knocked one of the gray balls back onto the lesson court.

She served the last game, the last brief game. One does not return service within reach of as tall and lithe a net man as Dr. Edmund Piersal had proved to be—all instincts, including that of self-preservation, are against it. Pam and Jerry returned to Rebecca Payne, making bounces as honest as they could manage, playing to the forehand. One of Jerry's returns floated within reach of Piersal, and that, although not in a manner to endanger either North, was that, and brought the score to fifteen-forty. It had gone on long enough, Pam thought, and drove to the dark girl's alley.

“We need a drink,” Piersal said, in the awning's shade. “I prescribe—”

“I'm sorry,” Rebecca said, and her voice was tense. “I spoiled your game—everybody's game.”

And then, slender, erect—and beaten—she walked away.

“She hurts herself,” Pam said. “And—it's all about nothing. Who cares about a game of tennis?”

“She does,” Piersal said. “About everything, probably. About the drink—”

But then, although he was still some thirty feet away, Mr. Grogan said, “Oh, Edmund. Spare me a moment?” He stopped and waited for Dr. Piersal to come to him and that, Pam thought, was unlike Paul Grogan. She had met Grogan less than forty-eight hours before but she was still quite sure that waiting to be walked to was unlike him.

The two men spoke briefly. Then Piersal turned and said, across the space, “Sorry. A rain check?”

“Of course,” Jerry said.

Then the tall doctor and Paul Grogan walked away together. They walked, Pam thought, rather quickly.

2

Pam and Jerry played a set. Jerry ran, pantingly, for drop shots. Pam waved, admiringly, at drives. “You don't run,” Jerry said. “That's what it is.”

“I run this way,” Pam said; “they go that way.”

“And there's the matter of your feet,” Jerry said.

“I know all about my feet.”

Jerry served and Pam's drop shot seemed to climb wearily over the net. The effort exhausted it. It died on clay. He served again; was drop-shotted again.

“There's the matter of your own feet,” Pam told him, with affection.

Jerry won, as was customary; at six-two, which was also customary. He felt as if he had been running uphill for a long time. They sat again under the awning, damp, contended. Pam said, “For heaven's sake. He's wearing clothes.” Jerry looked.

The man approaching had narrow shoulders and a narrow face, and he was, unmistakably, wearing clothes. He was wearing a dark business suit; his shirt was complete with tie. He even wore a hat. It occurred to Jerry that there was not, in all Key West, another man so attired. He came toward them and said, to two white-clad humans, both of them dripping moderately, “Been having a game?”

“Yes,” Jerry said. “Tennis.”

The man in the business suit saw nothing odd about this answer. Jerry felt he had wasted it.

“Name of Ashley,” the man said.

“North.”

The man who had the name of Ashley looked away abruptly; looked toward the swimming pool.

“I'll swear it is,” Ashley said. “What do you know?”

The Norths looked toward the swimming pool. A man was coming down from it, along the path toward the courts. He, also, wore a business suit. He wore a Panama hat. He, too, was a narrow man.

Ashley looked at Pam North, at Jerry North. He said, in a tone of awe, “Worthington.”

“I'm sorry,” Jerry said. “We're both sorry,” Pam said, feeling that two could play at this game, also.

“Down from Hialeah,” Ashley said. “What do you know?”

“I'm afraid—” Jerry North said.

“Must
have heard of him,” Ashley said. “Everybody's heard of him. Worthington Farms. Kentucky.”

“I'm sorry,” Pam North said.

The man under the Panama advanced toward them.

“Thoroughbreds,” Ashley said. “Derby winner. Triple crown.”

“Oh,” Pam said, “you mean he raises horses?”

Ashley looked at her quickly. He looked away again. He raised his voice slightly. He said, “Mr. Worthington?”

The man under the Panama said, “Yup.”

“Name of Ashley. Met you at—”

“Yup. 'Lo, Ashley.”

“Mr. North. Mrs. North.”

The man under the Panama said, “Ma'am. Sir.”

“Down from Hialeah?”

“Yup.”

“I wonder if—” Ashley said.

“Thought you might,” Worthington said. “Yup. Ladybug in the sixth. Monday. Shoo-in. Short odds. Maybe three to one. Can't have everything. Five lengths, could be. Well, got a plane to catch. Ma'am. Sir. Ashley.”

He turned, as if to go away. He did not, Pam thought, turn with any decisiveness.

Ashley looked at Jerry North and raised his eyebrows. Jerry was conscious that he himself blinked slightly.

“If you're going back to Miami,” Ashley said, to Worthington, who did not, Pam thought, actually seem to be going any place. “On this filly. I can't get away. Stuck here. Wonder if—”

“You'll talk about it. Gets out and the odds—”

“Mum,” Ashley said. “As an oyster, Mr. Worthington. It would be a favor. Isn't often anybody can get the word from a man like you, Worthington. Is it, Mr. North?”

There was excitement in Ashley's voice. There was even a kind of awe in his voice. Opportunity, his tone said, was not only knocking at the door. It was trying to beat the door down.

“I guess not,” Jerry said. There was, somewhere, a light tapping.

“Not much,” Ashley said, again to Worthington. “Not enough to hurt the odds. Maybe fifty?”

He reached to his hip pocket, took a wallet out. “If I can feel I've got my own money on her—”

“You'll keep your mouth shut,” Worthington said. “Generous of you, suh.”

Ashley waited. Worthington considered; his narrow face was all consideration.

“Sort of got me, haven't you?” he said. “Well—all right.”

“My friend here, too?”

Ashley indicated Gerald North.

Mr. Worthington sighed heavily, a man trapped by his own inadvertence.

“You're crowding me,” he said. “But—yup.” He took a small notebook from his pocket. It had a pencil between the leaves.

“Thomas J. Ashley,” Ashley said. “I'm staying at the Key Lodge.”

“Fifty on the nose,” Worthington said. He sighed again. Ashley opened his wallet and gave Worthington a bill. It was a fifty-dollar bill. Worthington looked at Jerry. Jerry felt, momentarily and obscurely, that this had all been decided.