Risky Way to Kill

by RICHARD LOCKRIDGE

  It seemed that Florence Wainright usually awakened early—seven-thirty or eight—and rang for coffee. That morning she had not rung. At a little before nine, Claire Prender—half the couple which served the house—had gone up to Mrs. Wainright’s bedroom and knocked at a closed door and, when there was no response from behind it, opened the door. Mrs. Wainright was lying on her back in the bed, and Mrs. Prender pulled curtains open, thinking that the light, what little there was of it, would awaken the sleeping woman. It did not. Neither did Mrs. Prender’s voice. And neither, when it came to that, did Mrs. Prender’s hand.

  “What they told the doctor,” Forniss said. “Lives just down the road, the doctor does.”

  “Yes,” Heimrich said. “I know Pat Kelly. Know where he lives. Mrs. Prender call him?”

  Paul Wainright had called the doctor; had caught him just as he was about to leave for his office in the Center. It had taken Kelly five minutes to reach the Wainright house. It was his estimate that Florence Wainright had been dead at least three hours.

  “And,” Forniss said, “the doc says there was an empty bottle on the table by her bed. Empty bottle and a water glass with a little water in it. Prescription number on the bottle. And ‘Nembutal’ typed on the label. And ‘One at bedtime for sleep.’ He’d never prescribed Nembutal for her, Doc Kelly says. Never prescribed anything for her. And—Hold it a minute, will you, M.L.? Other phone’s ringing. Could be—”

  Heimrich could hear the other telephone ringing in Forniss’s small office. He could hear Forniss speak into it, saying his name. He could hear Forniss say, “Hold it a minute, Trooper.” Forniss came back on Heimrich’s phone. “Trooper named Henderson,” Forniss said. “At the Wainright house. Pretty much a kid, sounds like. Sounds like he thinks he’s come on something. Want I—”

  Delegate, Heimrich told himself. “Switch him over to me, Charlie,” he said to Forniss.

  He hung up. Almost at once the telephone rang and he said, “Heimrich,” into it. Then he said, “Go ahead, Henderson. The Lieutenant thinks you’ve come on something.”

  What Henderson had come on was an absence—the absence of one Lucy Fowler, Mrs. Wainright’s personal maid.

  “Seems—” Henderson said.

  It seemed that Lucy Fowler, colored, age about nineteen, sometimes slept in the dressing room off Mrs. Wainright’s bedroom. She had a room of her own in another part of the house —“One hell of a big house, this one is”—but slept in the dressing room when Mrs. Wainright wanted her there. The bed in the dressing room had been slept in that night. “Last night,” Henderson said, “because I thought maybe they just hadn’t got around to making it up. But Mrs. Prender says she changes all the beds every Monday, because the laundry truck comes Tuesday, and that she made all the beds up fresh yesterday.”

  “The girl’s own room? This Lucy Fowler’s own room?”

  “They looked when they couldn’t find her,” Henderson said. “Bed wasn’t slept in. Or, of course, was slept in and made up afterward. But this Mrs. Prender says it wasn’t. Says she makes up a tight bed and Lucy, when she does her own, doesn’t make it tight. This one’s tight.”

  “Clothes?”

  “Most of them still in her closet, this Mrs. Prender thinks. Can’t be sure, because she doesn’t know what clothes Lucy had. But a couple of fresh uniforms, and a wool dress and two pairs of shoes. Underclothes and things like that in the drawers of the bureau. And a suitcase under the bed where, Mrs. Prender says, it’s always been since she’s been here. Says Lucy was here when she and Sam—Sam’s her husband; does outdoor work and drives the cars when he’s wanted—when she and her husband first went to work for the Wainrights. Lucy’d been Mrs. Wainright’s maid when the Wainrights lived over Brewster way. Brought her over to Van Brunt with them.”

  “Description of the girl?”

  “About five-four, Mrs. Prender says. No idea what she weighs, but it can’t be much. Pretty little things, as nigras go, Mrs. Prender said.”

  “‘Nigras?’ Like that, Henderson?”

  “Way it sounded to me.”

  “It’s a Southern variant,” Heimrich said. “Between ‘nigger,’ which they’re beginning—some of them are beginning—not to use so much and ‘Negro,’ which a lot of them can’t get used to. Mrs. Prender have a Southern accent otherwise?”

  “I didn’t notice it, sir. Sounded just like anybody else.”

  Henderson himself had, in moderation, a New England accent. Heimrich assumed Mrs. Prender had picked up “nigra” by association. He told Henderson to stick around. He put his telephone back on its cradle; then he put his hand on it and looked at the wall. He picked up the telephone and got an outside line and dialed a familiar number. After two rings he got, “Susan Faye Fabrics, good morning.” That was from Stella Barnes, who assisted in the shop. He got, “Of course, Inspector.” He waited half a minute and got, “I’m all covered with paint, darling,” from Susan, who does her fabric designs in the back room of the shop on Van Brunt Avenue.

  “You won’t have to take samples to Mrs. Wainright,” Merton told his wife. “Mrs. Wainright’s dead, dear. Took too many sleeping pills and died in her sleep.”

  “How dreadful,” Susan said. “How very dreadful. She meant to?”

  “I don’t know,” Heimrich said. “She had made a date with you for this morning. Doesn’t look as if she planned to kill herself, but it’s hard to be sure, naturally. I’m going up and look around.”

  “Remember,” Susan said, “that wet leaves make the roads slippery.”

  12

  Heimrich drove the Buick north through slashing rain with which the wipers almost kept up. Forniss followed him in a car from the pool. In Van Brunt Center, Heimrich slowed and made his stoplights flash on and off. He ran the window on the far side down and reached across the car and pointed and got a honk for an answer. In the mirror, he saw Forniss turn the police car into a driveway by a sign which said, “Patrick Kelly, M.D.” Heimrich drove on and turned off Van Brunt Avenue and climbed on a slippery blacktop. Now and then he lost traction on the soaked leaf cover, and wheels spun. Near the top of the last rise to the Wainright house he pulled far right onto a narrow shoulder to let an ambulance from the Cold Harbor Hospital creep past him.

  Forniss stopped behind the big white house on Van Brunt Avenue and went to a door which had DOCTOR’S OFFICE on a plaque beside it.

  There were six people in Dr. Patrick Kelly’s reception room, which was all the people there were chairs for. But two of the people were very small ones and were crawling on the floor. One of them pushed a toy dump truck violently at Forniss. He managed not to step on it. He went to a door across the room and knocked on it. A woman in a white uniform, but without a nurse’s cap, opened the door and said, “Come in; have you an appointment?”

  Forniss went into a small room, largely occupied by a desk, and admitted he did not have an appointment and told the woman in white who he was and that he’d like to see the doctor for a minute or two.

  “Doctor’s with a patient,” the woman told him. “I can’t bother him. And there are a lot waiting. Is it important, Lieutenant?”

  “I saw the people waiting,” Forniss said. “Yes, it’s important. It shouldn’t take more than a few minutes.”

  “Well,” the woman said, “just sit down and I’ll see. Doctor’s so very busy.”

  Forniss sat down on the only chair there was. Dr. Kelly’s secretary went to the desk and typed for some seconds. Then she pulled paper out of the typewriter and put an envelope in it and typed again, briefly. She folded the paper and put it in the envelope. Then she lifted the telephone and pushed a button in its base and there was a buzzing sound from somewhere.

  “There’s a policeman wants to see you, Doctor,” the secretary said. “He didn’t say—”

  “Tell him it’s about Mrs. Wainright,” Forniss said.

  She was dutiful. She said, “He says about Mrs. Wainright,” into the telephone. She said, “Yes, Doctor. I’l
l tell him,” and put the telephone back in its cradle. “He says in the back room,” she told Forniss. “When he can make it. It’s through there.” She pointed, and Forniss went through a door into a corridor. “Turn right,” she said after him. He turned right. He went into a room with a desk and an examining table in it and sat down and waited. He waited about ten minutes.

  Dr. Kelly was a lean man in his forties, with thick white hair. He sat down at the desk and lighted a cigarette and drew on it deeply. He looked at Forniss and said, “Molly tells me you’re a policeman.”

  “Yes,” Forniss said, and added to it.

  “Well, Lieutenant,” Kelly said. “There’s nothing much I can tell you about Mrs. Wainright. Except that she’s dead, which I take it you know already. Probably from an overdose of a barbiturate. Probably Nembutal. The bottle by her bed was labeled ‘Nembutal.’ The doctor’s name was Benson. The prescription was filled by a pharmacist in Brewster. On October second.”

  “This Dr. Benson?”

  “Good man. General practice.”

  “She used to live near Brewster,” Forniss said. “You’d gather Dr. Benson was still her physician?”

  “Yes.”

  “And she went over to Brewster on the second and saw him? And he prescribed Nembutal?”

  “Not necessarily,” Kelly said. “If he’d prescribed Nembutal before. She could have called him when she ran out and he could have called the drugstore and authorized a refill. Not supposed to, actually. But we all do.”

  Dr. Kelly put out his cigarette and lighted another. Forniss watched him, and suddenly Kelly took the cigarette out of his mouth and grinned. He had a wide grin.

  “All right,” he said, “I’m one of those who didn’t quit.” He held the cigarette pack toward Forniss, a cigarette protruding. Forniss took the cigarette out and used his lighter. “It may,” Dr. Kelly said, “be hazardous to your health. Says so on the package.”

  “A good many things are,” Forniss said. “You say the bottle by Mrs. Wainright’s bed was labeled ‘Nembutal’?”

  “Yes.”

  “Most prescriptions I get just have a number,” Forniss said.

  “Nowadays,” Kelly said, “a good many of us have the name of the medication typed on. Keeps people from taking the wrong thing. That’s the idea, anyway.”

  He drew deeply on his cigarette, to the hazard of his health.

  “The bottle was empty?”

  “Yes, Lieutenant. No, I don’t know how many capsules Dr. Benson specified. Perhaps fifty. Perhaps a hundred. Yes, I know that October second wasn’t too long ago.”

  “How many would she have had to take to cause her death?”

  “Now,” Kelly said, “that would vary, Lieutenant. Some people are more susceptible than others. And more susceptible at some times than at other times. The capsules were a grain and a half, probably. Which comes to one tenth of a gram, roughly. One capsule is the standard medicinal dosage. Or two if they’re three-quarter grain, of course. A gram of any of the barbiturates can be lethal.”

  “Ten of these capsules, then. A good many to take accidentally, wouldn’t it be?”

  “Yes,” Dr. Kelly said. “Oh, sometimes people forget they’ve taken sleeping medicine and take it again. Sometimes they forget again and take it again. Maybe she was unusually sensitive to barbiturates. But, yes. Taking ten or so accidentally isn’t very likely. Only—”

  He got up from his desk and went to a bookshelf, which was solid with thick books. He fingered a book out of the shelf and brought it back to his desk. It was a heavy green book. Forniss looked at the title—“Legal Medicine, Pathology and Toxicology. Gonzales, Vance, Halpern, Umberger.”

  A slip of paper marked a place in the book. Kelly opened it there and ran a finger down a page. “If she’d been drinking a lot,” Kelly said. “And the other night at the Inn she was drinking a lot. A good many people noticed it, unfortunately. Made things difficult for that nice Mercer girl. Here, read it yourself.”

  He reached the book to Forniss, his finger still marking a spot on a page.

  Forniss read, “Toxic action of the barbiturates is enhanced by the synergistic action of the alcohol, both poisons having a depressant action on the central nervous system.” Forniss looked up from the book and raised his eyebrows.

  “Been known to happen,” Kelly said. “Normal amount of barbiturate; normal amount of alcohol. Oh, maybe a little more than the usual amount of both. But not enough of either, taken separately, to do any special damage. Together—” He shrugged his shoulders. He put his cigarette out and lighted another. “While back,” he said, “there was a case like that. Woman who was pretty well known. A good deal of publicity about it. A doctor told the reporters that alcohol and sleeping medicine make a risky combination. They printed that.”

  “Doctor, do you know if Mrs. Wainright had been drinking a good deal last night?”

  “No way of telling from looking at her,” Kelly said. “She was dead, Lieutenant.”

  “With this in mind,” Forniss said, “and I see you marked the place in this legal medicine book—did you ask anybody at the Wainright house?”

  “Yes,” Kelly said. “Man named Gant, who seems to be visiting there. Brother of her first husband or something. I didn’t see Wainright himself. Knocked out by it, Gant said. As to her drinking last night—they’d been out to dinner and they’d all had a few. No way of telling what he meant by ‘a few,’ of course.”

  Forniss closed the book and handed it back to Dr. Patrick Kelly and said, “Thanks. Appreciate your sparing the time.”

  “It’s O.K.,” Kelly said. “I don’t smoke when I’m examining patients. Kids, particularly. Call it a cigarette break, Lieutenant.” He looked at his watch. He said, “Damn it,” and stood up.

  “If I telephoned this Dr. Benson,” Forniss said, “would he tell me anything about Mrs. Wainright? Whether he examined her recently? And how many capsules he stipulated in this last prescription?”

  “Shouldn’t think so,” Kelly said. “Rule is, we don’t talk about patients.” He looked thoughtfully at Forniss. He said, “Oh, all right. I’m running late anyway,” and sat down at his desk and picked up the telephone. He said, “Outside line, dear,” into it. Then he dialed. He waited, apparently, for a good many rings. Then he said, “Dr. Benson, please. Dr. Kelly calling.” He waited a minute or more. He said, “Morning, Bill. Good day for pneumonia. Pat Kelly. Seems a Mrs. Wainright—Mrs. Paul Wainright—was a patient of yours. She died last night. Overdose, probably. They’re doing a post. You prescribed Nembutal for her. Filled last time early this month. She go over there to see you?”

  Forniss heard the scratch of a responding voice. He could not hear the words.

  “Do it pretty often myself,” Kelly said. “How many?”

  He listened again. He said, “Fifty?” and was answered. He said, “Thanks, Bill. Got called in on it. Dead when I got there. Never consulted me, so you know the routine.” He listened again. He said, “Probably the way it was, Doctor. Breaks them up sometimes, of course. You got the virus going around, too?” He listened again. He said, “Yes, mine expect miracles, too.” He hung up.

  “Mrs. Wainright called him up and asked him to O.K. a refill,” Kelly said. “He called the pharmacist. He specified fifty, grain and a half. She was his patient for several years when they lived in Brewster. She’d never had a bad reaction to Nembutal. She was in reasonably good physical condition, making allowance for the fact she was going through menopause.” He looked at his watch again and again stood up. Forniss, who had sat while Kelly telephoned, stood up too. He said, “Thanks again, Doctor.”

  “Not much help, I’m afraid,” Kelly said. “They’ll know more when they finish the p.m. Pretty close to how much she took. And how much she’d had to drink.” He started toward the door and stopped and turned back. “Menopause hits some women hard,” he said. “Now and then they go off their rockers. You know that, Lieutenant?”

  “Yes,” Forniss sai
d. “I’ve heard that.”

  “Now and then,” Kelly said. “Not often, but now and then, they go into depressions. Usually come out of them in a year or so. Unless they decide they can’t take it.”

  Forniss said, “Yep. I’ve heard that, Doctor,” and followed the lean, white-haired physician out of the little examining room.

  A police car was parked in front of the Wainright house. Heimrich pulled the Buick in behind it and went fifty feet through slashing rain, his not very water-resistant coat flapping about him. He pushed a button and could hear chimes from inside the house. After a little time, a squarely built woman, gray-haired, in her fifties, opened the door. She wore a black dress with a yellow sweater over it.

  She looked up at Heimrich and shook her head and said, “No, mister. Whatever it is. We’ve got trouble here.”

  “I know you have,” Heimrich said, and told her who he was. He said, “Mrs. Prender?” and the square woman said, “That’s right, mister. You said ‘Inspector’?”

  He said, “Yes, Mrs. Prender.”

  “There’s a policeman here already,” she said. “He’s out in the kitchen drinking coffee. He’s a nice boy. He asked a lot of questions. Mostly about this Lucy. How many of you there’s going to be?”

  “Not too many,” Heimrich said. “Mr. Wainright up to talking to me, would you say?”

  “I’d say not,” she said. “The poor man. What would you think? And the poor lady, too.” Heimrich started to unbutton his top coat. “Oh, all right,” Mrs. Prender said. “Come on in if you’ve got to. No point in standing here with the door open.”

  She pulled the door farther open, and Heimrich went into the house. There was a wide, carpeted area beyond the door. At the end of it a staircase went up to a landing and there split into two curving staircases. “He’s back there,” Mrs. Prender said, and pointed to one of the passages which ran back on either side of the stairway. “Drinking coffee.”