Murder by the Book (4 page)

“On the pier,” Pam said. “He's—shot. I don't know. Stabbed. There's—” He could feel her body steady, could feel a deep breath going into her lungs. “There's blood all over,” she said. But her voice still shook. “Dr. Piersal. He's been killed. Somebody's killed him and—”

Again her body began to shake in his arms. He tightened his arms.

“I'll be all right,” Pam said. “We've got—”

Jerry released her. In seconds he was in shorts, in canvas shoes.

This morning—this still early morning—there was nobody in the lobby, no drone of vacuum. This morning the whole hotel seemed to sleep. “Sunday,” Jerry thought, his mind flicking the word. This morning no man watered the lawns of The Coral Isles. As they ran toward the pier, they ran through a sleeping world. The gulls screamed harshly above them. A pelican sat on a pile, far out, and stared at them.

Edmund Piersal lay face down on the platform at the end of the pier. He wore walking shorts and a tennis shirt which had been white, and a gray sweater. Blood spread out from his body, but most of it had dripped between the planks, gone drop by drop into the water below.

He was, Jerry realized, done with bleeding. He was dead, now.

He lay on the wound which had killed him—the wound of knife or bullet, the wound through which his blood had flowed over boards, into water. He had not been dead long, Jerry guessed, but knew the roughness of a layman's guess.

He crouched beside Piersal's body. He stood up. “I'll go—” he began, and looked at Pam. She was standing very still; she was looking away, looking at the pelican on its post. Under the faint flush of beginning sunburn her face was very white. He spoke her name, but she did not turn. She nodded her head, but did not turn.

“Go tell somebody,” he said. “There'll be somebody at the desk. I'll stay here.”

She nodded her head again. She said, “All right, Jerry,” in a strange voice. Then she moved away. She took two quick steps. Then she began to run.

There was no hurry. Piersal would wait, would wait patiently for all the time there was. But there are conventions in such matters. Jerry North leaned against the rail and waited with him. Don't touch. See that the body isn't moved. Leave things as you find them; see that things are left.

“Don't tell me you left the body,” Bill Weigand—Captain William Weigand—would say. “You ought to know better by now, Jerry.”

Bill wasn't there. It was no business of Bill Weigand's. It is no business of mine, Jerry thought. No business of ours—just that lousy luck of ours. You find a body in a bathtub,
^*
and your life is changed. Changed for keeps. It's going to be another hot day. We won't play tennis today. He had a hell of a good backhand, Piersal had. He loved the game. Probably he loved many things—the feel of a ball hit cleanly, the taste of broiled shrimps in white wine sauce. All sorts of things. Big things and little things. Pam had told him about the pelicans and he had come out to see the pelicans and …

Jerry shivered slightly. Policemen are not fools. William Weigand of Homicide West was one of the most intelligent men Jerry knew. There is no implication of guilt in the finding of a man murdered. Forty-eight hours ago, neither he nor Pam had laid eyes on Dr. Edmund Piersal. Pam had not invited Edmund Piersal to pier's end to watch the feeding of pelicans. Of course she hadn't. Oh, she might have said, “You ought to see them, doctor. Funny birds. They think people were made to fish for pelicans.”

Jerry looked, with something like anger, at the pelican on its post. Silly-looking damn bird. Teddy or Freddy or whatever.

There was movement at the shore end of the pier. A bellman in a red jacket ran along a path toward the pier. There wasn't really any hurry, Jerry thought. An hour or so ago there might have been a time for that. Behind the bellman, trotting, was Paul Grogan, with the morning sun on his white hair. He looked behind Grogan. There was nobody else. That was a good thing. Pam had seen enough for that day.

The bellman wore hard shoes. His feet thudded on the pier planking. He ran easily, as youth runs. Fifty feet or so away he suddenly stopped running, and came on slowly, with an odd kind of solemnity in his movement. He stopped some feet from the planks which were stained with blood. He said, “Jeeze.” Color went out from under the tan on his face. He said, “He's dead, isn't he?”

“Yes,” Jerry said. “He's dead.”

Paul Grogan came up, his face redder than ever from his running. He looked at the body. He said, “My God.
Edmund.”
He looked at Jerry North.

“Yes,” Jerry said. “He's dead.”

Jerry felt a little, and unpleasantly, like a master of ceremonies.

He said, “You called the police?”

“County sheriff,” Grogan said. “Who'd do a thing like this? To a man like Edmund Piersal?”

Jerry did not have the answers. He said, “You knew him pretty well?”

“Pretty well,” Grogan said. “One of my regulars.” Jerry raised his eyebrows slightly. It was as good a thing as any to talk about.

“People in my line,” Grogan said. “People who manage resort hotels. Down here this time of year. Some place up north in the summers. This place one year, maybe another place another year. People get used to us. Figure it's the way a place is run as much as anything. A personal following. One of the things we have to sell. Four-five years ago, I managed a place up the Keys. Met the doctor then. Next summer, maybe the summer after, it was a place in New Hampshire. He came there. Since then—” He shrugged.

“Alone?”

“The first time his wife was with him. She died. Alone since then. He was dead when your wife found him?”

“Yes,” Jerry said.

“What do you suppose he was doing out here? He didn't fish much.”

“I don't know,” Jerry said.

Distantly, there was the sound of a siren.

“There they come,” Grogan said. “A hell of a thing to happen.”

This time, Jerry felt, he did not speak only of the hellish thing which had happened. Hotel managers prefer murders to occur, if they must at all, off the premises.

“Get out of here!” Grogan shouted, suddenly, and unexpectedly, at the pelican. His voice was angry. When a man is filled with anger, a man has to put it some place.

The pelican paid no attention.

“Stay here, Jimmy,” Grogan said. “If you see anybody starting out—any of the guests, I mean—tell them …” He paused. “Tell them the pier isn't safe.”

The bellman said, “Yes, sir.” There was something wrong with his voice.

Grogan started to walk back along the pier, and Jerry went with him. When Grogan had walked twenty feet or so, he turned.

“Oh, Jimmy,” he said. “Don't make it sound too permanent, huh? Tell them we'll have the pier fixed in—oh, a couple of hours.”

Jimmy said, “Yes, sir.”

Pam was sitting in a corner of a sofa in the hotel lobby. The sofa was much too large for her. She was sitting as straight as one may on a deep sofa; her hands were clasped in her lap. Jerry went over and sat beside her.

“I told him about the pelicans,” Pam said. “Do you suppose he—he went to watch them? And that that was—”

“No,” Jerry said. “I don't, Pam.”

“That, if I hadn't told him—”

“No.” He put an arm around her shoulders. “No.”

The sirens came closer. They came up the drive from Flagler Avenue, and to the circle in front of The Coral Isles. The first one stopped, but another continued. They were, Jerry thought, policemen in love with the sound of their own sirens.

Two state troopers came in, revolvers heavy at their sides; their expressions those of men ready for anything, and rather expecting riots. They stood inside and looked around the lobby, the right hand of each close to a holstered gun.

“My,” Pam North said, “what fierce policemen. You'd think somebody'd passed a stop sign.”

Jerry was relieved. The implacable troopers had changed the subject.

The second siren stopped its wailing. After a few seconds a tall and youngish man, wearing a blue suit, came in and looked around the lobby. He was very tanned; he had light hair in sharp contrast to the mahogany of his face. He went to the desk. Paul Grogan had been behind the desk; now he came around it and joined the man in the blue suit and walked with him to where the Norths waited.

“This is Deputy Sheriff Jefferson,” Grogan said. “This is Mr. and Mrs. North, sheriff.”

“Deputy,” Jefferson said. “Mr. North. Ma'am.”

He turned. Two other men, also in civilian clothes, had come through the entrance. One of them had a camera. Deputy Sheriff Jefferson nodded at them, and indicated with his head the direction they were to take. He turned back to the Norths.

“Like to talk to you after a bit,” he said. “Have a look-see first. All right?”

“We don't—” Jerry North said.

“Sure you don't,” Jefferson said. “All the same. Won't be long.”

“We,” Pam said, “aren't going anywhere, sheriff.”

Then he went across the lobby, and out onto the porch beyond it.

“I'd so hoped,” Pam North said, “that we'd never find another body.”

Grogan had gone back behind the desk. Now he came from behind it and went to the two state policemen who still stood, ready for anything, just inside the main entrance. He spoke to them. The Norths could not hear his words, but could guess. “They make it look as if the joint was raided,” Jerry said. The policemen looked at each other; one of them shrugged. It was the shrug of a man who humors the not particularly rational. The two policemen went out. The Norths could hear their cars start up.

They waited. The young woman who ran the newsstand came in, and behind her a bellman carrying newspapers in a bundle. She opened the newsstand. A plump man and a plump woman came the length of the lobby, wearing bright clothing, bound for breakfast. Grogan said, “Good morning, Mr. Umph. Mrs. Umph. Looks like another beautiful day.” Mr. Umph said “umph,” or something like it. A tall young man and a pretty girl walked through the lobby hand in hand. A little girl of about three, in a bright yellow dress, ran through the lobby, screaming. Her screams were happy screams. From the far end of the lobby a man called,
“Margie!”
If the little girl was Margie she chose not to be reminded of it. A waiter went through the lobby, wheeling a breakfast cart. The Coral Isles was beginning to stretch itself awake.

Deputy Sheriff Jefferson came in from the porch side and spoke first to Paul Grogan, who was standing near the desk. Grogan nodded his head. Jefferson came to the Norths. He pulled a chair up and sat in front of them.

“Now, ma'am,” Jefferson said. “About when was it?”

“About,” Pam said. She looked at the clock over the fireplace—the fireplace which showed no sign of any use. “About forty-five minutes ago.”

Jefferson looked at the clock.

“About seven-fifteen,” he said. “That about right?”

“Yes.”

“By yourself, Mrs. North?”

“Yes.”

“Do you mind telling me why, Mrs. North?”

Jerry could feel it coming. It came. He noticed, not without sympathy, the expression in the eyes of the deeply tanned, youngish deputy sheriff.

“That is,” Jerry said, “to catch fish for the pelicans. People do, you know.”

Jefferson looked at him.

“They expect it,” Pam said. “Mr. Grogan says they're called Teddy and Freddy. And I always get up early anyway.”

Jefferson looked at Mrs. North. He took a deep breath. His wide chest swelled with it.

“Yes, ma'am,” he said. “I see. You went out to fish for—to catch fish for pelicans. You found Dr. Piersal. You thought he was dead?”

“Yes,” Pam North said. “I was quite sure he was dead. You can almost always tell. And there was so much …” She did not finish that. Jerry could see her pale again under the beginning sunburn.

“A lady like you,” Jefferson said. “I shouldn't think—well, ma'am, it sounded as if you had—” He paused, clearly seeking words. “Had experience,” he said, coming up with them. “With—that is, with dead bodies.”

“Oh, yes,” Pam said. “Quite a little, sheriff. Since the one in the bathtub.”

It was true, of course. Pamela North is a truthful person. And she had, of course, been asked. She might, Jerry thought, have left out the bathtub bit. She had, he realized, put it in for clarification.

“Bathtub?” Jefferson said. “What's about a bathtub?”

“It was a long time ago,” Jerry said, rather hurriedly. “It hasn't anything to do with this.”

“Of course not,” Pam said. “That one was named Brent. And he was a lawyer, not a doctor.”

It had all come about naturally, Jerry thought. One thing had led to another. For some reason, one thing always did. Particularly, of course, with Pam.

“Sheriff,” Gerald North said firmly, “several years ago we found the body of a murdered man in a bathtub. As a result of that we met a detective—a New York City detective. Captain William Weigand, a homicide man. As a result of meeting him we've been—” He checked himself. The words “mixed up in several murders” would not, he thought, be wellchosen words. “Interested in some of his cases,” Jerry said.

Deputy Sheriff Jefferson appeared to consider this. Then he said, “Oh.” Then he said, “I guess that explains it.” He did not speak with assurance. He said, “Let's get back to Dr. Piersal, ma'am.”

Pam said, “Let's.”

“You didn't expect to find him there?” Jefferson asked her.

“Of course not.”

“I meant,” Jefferson said, “find him alive?”

“If you think I went out there to meet him, I didn't. Why—that is, I certainly didn't. We hardly knew him at all.”

“Sheriff,” Jerry said, “we met him for the first time day before yesterday. Played tennis with him yesterday. Had a drink with him before lunch.”