Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 116, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 709 & 710, September/October 2000

Spear rolled his bulging eyes toward the ceiling. “I’m glad you weren’t on the Ted Bundy jury, Jack.” He opened a file on his desk. “I’ve developed a little independent information that might interest you, my boy. Remember Cliff Logan’s employment record showing him as a pilot for an inter-island commuter airline in Hawaii? To qualify for that job, he had to take training in emergency water landing of small aircraft. He finished first in his class. He knew exactly what he was doing when he set down on Ghost Lake; he knew how to get out of the plane, and he knew how to sink it.

“Here’s something else. I talked with a couple of other Las Reno pilots and they told me that a year before Cliff Logan quit to go to work for Eureka, he had been dating a blond showgirl from the Miramar. She dumped him and married somebody else. It left Logan pretty bummed out for a while. But a few months later, he started seeing a married woman and seemed to come out of it. The married woman was also a blonde.” Spear poked the file with his forefinger. “Same woman, Jack. Ruth Slott Tenney.”

“If they’ve been that crazy about each other for so long,” Nash said, “and were still so crazy about each other that they’d commit murder to be together, how do they manage to stay away from each other now? They’re never seen together anymore. Neighbors around the Tenney home say Ruth has hardly gone out at all since the accident. And Logan’s not even in Fallon anymore; he’s living in Reno, getting therapy for his knee. Phone records don’t even show that they’re calling each other. People who commit murder together keep in touch, Sam. They have to, to make sure neither of them is turning on the other. You taught me that, Sam. But these two have gone separate ways since a few days after the accident.”

“Wrong,” said Spear. “I just got Herman Golden’s latest surveillance report an hour ago. They’ve been meeting at the Top Dollar Motel down at the edge of Carson City. It’s an hour’s drive from Fallon, and an hour’s drive from Reno. They meet every other night, usually between midnight and three. The neighbors don’t see Ruth leave because the neighbors are probably all asleep by then. The surveillance guys don’t know how or when Logan gets down there; they think he might be taking a bus or a taxi from the hospital where he’s getting his therapy — there are a number of exits there and they lose him nearly every day. But he’s usually already at the motel when she gets there about one in the morning. They go into the bar for a drink or two, then head for the room. After two or three hours in the sack, Ruth leaves and goes home so she can be back in before daylight. Logan just stays there the rest of the night.”

Spear smiled one of his nasty little smiles. “Check it out,” he said. “They met last night, they’ll meet again tomorrow night. Hop on a commuter up to Carson City and see for yourself.”

“I might do that,” Nash said.

As Nash was leaving Spear’s office, the claims director added, “Oh, Jack, if you go, don’t put the trip on your expense account. You’ll be doing this to satisfy your own curiosity. Far as I’m concerned, this case is closed and the claim is denied.”

Spear was laughing quietly to himself as Nash closed the office door behind him.

In bed that night in Stella’s modest little apartment, with her face nuzzled into his shoulder, Nash found himself chewing on the inside of his mouth, a habit he had when he was perplexed and troubled about something. Stella noticed him doing it.

“What’s the matter, lover?” she asked lazily. “Didn’t get enough?”

“I always get enough with you,” Nash said. “No, it’s just that I can’t help thinking that Sam is stretching too far to make the Tenney claim a murder case.”

“Why would he do that?” Stella asked. “I mean, dead’s dead. Won’t the company have to pay the death benefit anyway?”

“Not if we can prove by circumstantial evidence that the beneficiary on all three policies conspired with another employee of Eureka Petroleum to kill him. That would void everything. We don’t even need a criminal conviction, either; we can claim fraud in a civil court. Remember how O. J. Simpson was found not guilty in a criminal case but guilty under the same facts in a civil case? Same principle applies here.”

“You think Spear is wrong?”

“Something’s wrong, I just don’t know what. Maybe it’s me.”

“Hmmmm, I doubt that. You’re usually very good at everything you do, in the office and out. Stop chewing the inside of your mouth.”

They lay in silence for a few minutes, the light in the tiny little bedroom very low, not even a sheet covering them, Stella turned toward him with one long leg thrown over between his, one hand across his chest, fingers playing with the short hair around his ear.

“My rent got raised today,” she said after a while.

“Really? How much?”

“Forty a month. I’m going to have to look for something cheaper.”