Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine, Vol. 44, No. 4, April 1980

Seems that three death claims had been filed against — International. Underwriters within the last month, and all three had listed American General Finance as the beneficiary. None of the three had any family to speak of, and odder yet, all three had died of a coronary while driving on Jefferson Avenue near Bixby, and two of the three had died within a block of each other. The other had kneeled over six blocks closer to the heart of the city. It appeared all three had been traveling in the same direction, and last but not least, were probably on their way from American Finance. Of course, being a month apart, the deaths had not struck anyone as odd until all three were processed through International Underwriters. It all sounded fishy to Capella, fishy enough for him to offer me a ten percent saviour’s bonus to straighten things out. If it was all a case of incredible coincidence, I got a nice fee anyway.

I jotted down the three names on a legal pad, plus a little background information, and set myself to snooping.

It was a bright, cold winter day in Clayton, Missouri, and I shivered in spite of my wool overcoat. To the east, that delightful St. Louis smog hung in the air like a thick, yellow blanket. I climbed into my dirty, blue Mustang, cranked the wreck to life and headed down highway 44 toward the morgue.

Doc Warren had presided over the downtown morgue since Pierre La Clede first traded beads to the local Indians for their furs. It wasn’t hard to find the grumpy old pathologist. As usual, he was at work in the crypt-like dissecting room of the morgue.

Doc looked like a balding, old elf with watery blue eyes. And I always thought his voice was a lot like George Bums’.

“Well, well,” he said patting the chest of an outstretched corpse. “It’s our old pal Leif Hunter.” He bent down to whisper in the corpse’s ear. “What do you think, Dave? Think he wants a favor?”

Some folks say Doc Warren has a morbid sense of humor, but don’t you believe it.

“Well,” I said. “Dr. Frankenstein at work.”

Doc stepped aside, exposing Dave’s abdomen, the skin of which had been neatly sliced open and laid aside to exhibit the entrails and such with disgusting clarity.

I put my eyes on Doc’s face — which was almost as bad as “Dave’s” entrails — and said: “What say I buy you a cup of coffee, Doc?”

Doc turned to his supine straight man. “Bribes, Dave. He’s going to try and ply me with spiritous drink.”

“Hardly spiritous,” I said.

“At my age coffee is spiritous. By the way. What brings you to Necropolis, Leif?”

I told him briefly about the insurance problem. When I finished, he nodded, motioned to a vulture-faced young intern who was examining a vial of vitreous pink fluids. “Take care of Dave here for me,” Doc, said, and we left Vulture-Face in charge of Doc’s buddy.

We stopped at a file cabinet in the outer office, and using my list of names, Doc picked out the three deaths I was investigating. “This isn’t exactly kosher,” Doc said, “but as long as you don’t actually look at them...”

We went out of the office and walked down the hall to the little staff canteen. The coffee was out of one of those big tan machines that eats dimes like candy, and the coffee, though hot, tasted like the stuff they put in the corpses.

After we seated ourselves at a table, Doc flipped open the files. I said, “Any sign of foul play on the three?”

Doc was quiet for a moment. He went through each file slowly, sipping his coffee as he read. Finally, he said, “No... But, often times, unless foul play is suspected, it’s difficult to find.”

“Come again,” I said.

“Well, unless it’s something obvious, like a gunshot wound for instance, you have to have an idea what you’re looking for. I mean I can see how it would all be curious now. The three dying the same way, in the same area, within a month of each other, but there was no way of knowing the deaths were unusual at the time. They were just routine, and no autopsy was performed on any of the three.

“One thing that’s sort of curious, not enough to get excited about, but all three died of cardiopulmonary dysfunction. This Dravek guy, the young one, seemed to be healthy enough. I mean, it’s not impossible, but young guys like him just don’t keel over from heart attacks every day. He was a mailman and did a lot of walking, I presume. He should have been in pretty good shape. At least as far as the heart is concerned. But like I said, that’s not astounding. The other two were old enough, in their sixties, and heart failure is a rather common cause of death at their age. That’s about all I can tell you.”

“And where are the bodies now?”

“Some cemetery, of course. You think they just hang around the morgue?”