A Treasury of Stories (Collection of novelettes and short stories)

“Yeah, I’m in here, don’t bother me, go look in the bathroom,” I hollered out to the medical examiner and all the boys, who had just then arrived. A cop was hung outside the door to keep the reporters out, and everyone got down to work. When they began to get in my way I went down to my own place to give myself a little more elbow room, taking with me an insurance policy on Mrs. Fraser’s life I’d found tucked away in the bottom bureau drawer and two hairpins, one from the carpet in the bedroom, one from the mess on the bathroom floor. The policy was for ten grand and the first premium had been paid just one week before, so it was now in full swing. I phoned the salesman who’d made it out and had a talk with him.

“Naw, he didn’t, she took it out herself,” he told me. “She said she was doing it because he wanted her to very badly, kept after her about it day and night.”

“Oh-oh,” I grunted. “Got any idea who this Mrs. Drew is?”

“Some woman friend of hers. She did that because she said she’d heard too many cases of people being killed for their insurance money, so she wasn’t taking any chances. Wouldn’t make her husband beneficiary, just in case.”

But that didn’t go over at all with me. No woman that crowds all her husband’s belongings into one little top bureau drawer and appropriates all the rest for herself is afraid of her husband doing anything like that to her. She has too much to say over him. Or if she really had been afraid, why take out a policy at all, why not just lie low and steer clear of trouble altogether?

I went in to ask Fraser a few questions, ready or not. He was sitting on the edge of the sofa in our living room, sticking his tongue in a glass of spirits of ammonia mixed with water and having St. Vitus’s dance from the waist up. Katie and the super, one on each side of him, were trying to buck him up. “Out,” I said to the two of them and jerked my thumb at the door.

“Now no rough-house in here,” Katie warned me out of the comer of her mouth. “I just had this room vacuumed today.”

“How much do you make?” I asked him when they’d both gone outside. He told me. “How much insurance y’carrying?”

“Twenty-five hundred.”

“And your wife?”

“None,” he said.

I watched him hard. He wasn’t lying. His eyes went up at me when he answered instead of dropping down.

I took a turn around the room and lit a butt. “What was her maiden name?” I said.

“Taylor.”

“You got any married sisters?”

“No, just a single one.”

“She have any?”

“No.”

I went over to him and kicked his foot out of the way. “When was the last time you saw Mrs. Drew?”

“Who?” he said.

I said it over, about an inch away from his face.

He screwed his eyes up innocently. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t know any Mrs. Drew.”

I had him figured for the nervous type. Slapping around wasn’t any good. It wasn’t in my line anyway. “All right, Mac, come on in the bathroom with me.” I hauled him in by the shoulder. He let out a moan when he saw the ceiling. I made him sit on the edge of the tub, then I grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and held his head down. It was still coming through. It was mostly water but he couldn’t see that. He squirmed and tried to jerk back when the first drop landed on the back of his head. Sweat came out all, over his face like rain. “Why’d you do it?” I said.

“I didn’t, my God, I didn’t,” he choked. “Let me out of here—”

“You’re going to sit here until you tell me why you did it and who Mrs. Drew is.”

“I don’t know,” he moaned. “I never heard of her.” Another drop landed, on his pulse this time, and I thought he’d have convulsions. “Why’d you do it? Who’s Mrs. Drew?”

He could hardly talk any more. “I didn’t. I don’t know her. How can I tell you if I don’t know her?” He kept waiting for the third drop that was coming. All of a sudden his head flopped and he fainted away again.

It may have been cruel, but I don’t think so. It saved his life for him. It convinced me he hadn’t done it, and that he didn’t know who Mrs. Drew was. I got him over to a big chair and went and flagged Katie.

“Maybe you can help me. What made you say ‘that poor woman!’ when I started up the first time? How is it you didn’t say ‘that poor man!’?”

She looked indignant. “Why, he abused her! You were never home enough to hear what went on up there. They used to have terrible rows. She dropped in here only this morning and told me he’d threatened her life.”

“I didn’t know you knew her that well.”

“I didn’t,” she said. “As a matter of fact today was the first time she’d ever been in here.”

“I don’t get it,” I remarked. “Why should she come to you to spill a thing like that, if she hardly knew you at all?”