Ричард Деминг - The Second Richard Deming Mystery MEGAPACK®

Parking across the street, I went over and climbed the porch steps. The two workmen stopped pounding and one of them called, “If you’re looking for Doc, he’s next door at the post office.”

At that moment a thin, elderly man carrying a cloth bag emerged from the post office. He was followed by a stocky, gray-haired man with a thick chest. The latter was in shirtsleeves and was smoking a pipe.

As the elderly man tossed his cloth bag into the back of a jeep parked in front of the post office and climbed under the wheel, the pipe smoker said, “See you this afternoon, Joe.” Then he glanced over at the porch and spotted me. As the jeep drove off, he came over and mounted the porch steps.

I asked, “Are you Dr. Emmet Parks?”

He took his pipe out of his mouth to examine me, then gave me a pleasant smile. He radiated such good nature, I instinctively liked him on sight.

“That’s right, young fellow. What can I do for you?”

I handed him a card. “I would like to discuss some death certificates you recently signed in connection with some insurance claims.”

After studying the card, he dropped it into his shirt pocket. “We can’t talk over all this pounding,” he said, indicating the two workmen, who had resumed nailing lath to the inside walls. “Come inside.”

He led me into the house. The front room was set up as a waiting room, but no one was in it.

As we passed through this room to an office, he said with a touch of ruefulness, “I’m not snowed under by patients, despite being the only physician in this county. The people around here are too infernally healthy.” Inside the office he rounded a battered old desk to seat himself behind it and waved me to a chair. Beyond the office wall we could still hear the pounding of nails, but it was muffled enough so that we didn’t have to raise our voices.

After relighting his pipe, he said, “I’d guess you’re about twenty-seven, Mr. Quinn. That close?”

“Twenty-eight.”

“Married?”

“No, sir,” I said.

“Don’t wait too long,” he advised. “Eventually you reach a point where you suddenly realize your chance to marry is gone. I’ve reached it. It gets rather lonely rattling around all alone in this big house. And it’ll be even bigger when the clinic’s finished. It’s too late for me to start hunting for a wife now, so all I have to look forward to is a lonely old age. Don’t make my mistake.”

I thought of Anita, and wondered if I would still be trying to talk her into marrying me when I reached the doctor’s age. “I’m agreeable to marriage,” I said. “But my girl doesn’t think I make enough money. She wants me to go into some kind of business for myself before she’ll say yes.”

“Beware of women with expensive tastes, Mr. Quinn. The more money you make, the more expensive their tastes become.”

“This one is worth it,” I assured him.

“The romantic faith of youth,” he said with a rueful smile. “I won’t burden you with more advice, because you wouldn’t take it anyway. Now what death certificates do you want to ask me about?”

“Five deaths from typhoid this last July and August. Herman Potter, Henrietta Skinner, Martha Colvin, Helen Jordan and Abel Hicks. They were all insured for ten thousand dollars, each by different carriers, but through the same insurance broker, Paul Manners.”

Pie took a puff of his pipe. “Uh-huh. What about them?”

“You were the medical examiner for each application, and also signed all five death certificates.”

“Naturally. I’m the only physician in the county. You’ll also find my signature on the coroner’s reports if you want to check. I’m county coroner.”

“It wasn’t that which brought me here.” I said. “All five claim-payment checks were endorsed to you and later cashed by you at a Holoyke bank. Can you explain that?”

Instead of seeming offended, the doctor looked amused. “You came all the way from the state capital just to ask about that, young fellow? They were cashed in Holyoke because that’s where I have my account. Heather Ridge doesn’t have a bank, and Holoyke is the nearest one. As to why they were endorsed to me, you don’t know much about this country, do you?”

“Not much,” I admitted. “It strikes me as a little backward.”

“It’s a century behind the times, Mr. Quinn. Back here in the hills people like lots of room, and don’t trust the outside world. The farms in this area are huge, and largely uncultivatable. Three-fourths of the land is either heavily wooded or straight up and down. Geographically we’re the seventh largest county in the state; in population we’re the smallest. Farmers around here sometimes go months without seeing anyone but their own families. They’ve largely been forgotten by the outside world. Social workers never come prying into the hill country to make sure kids are attending school. Our illiteracy rate is probably fifty percent, although I don’t believe anyone has ever bothered to make a survey. Begin to understand?”

“I’m afraid not,” I confessed.

“Hill people don’t put their money in banks. They hide it under the flooring. That’s why there’s no bank here. It wouldn’t have enough customers to support it. Most hill people wouldn’t have the faintest idea of how to go about cashing a check. They endorsed them over to me so I could cash them in Holoyke and bring back the cash in hundred-dollar bills.”

“Oh,” I said. The explanation was that simple.

After a moment of thought, I said, “I guess that clears it up. I may as well see Paul Manners while I’m here, though. How do I find him?”

“You don’t. He and his wife are in Florida for the winter.”

I raised my eyebrows. “Do people from around here ordinarily vacation in Florida?”

He grinned. “Only Paul. He hit a windfall by becoming an insurance broker, because this is virgin territory. A lot of the townspeople have carried insurance for years, of course, but I doubt that any of the people back in the hills have ever before been approached by an insurance salesman. They wouldn’t have bought from a stranger anyway. Paul was born and grew up in this area, and knows everybody in the county, so they trust him. I guess his commissions financed his Florida vacation.”

“Well, I suppose it isn’t really necessary to see him,” I said. “Everything seems to be on the up-and-up.”

“You may as well complete your investigation while you’re here,” Dr. Parks said. “It would be too bad if your superiors weren’t satisfied, and sent you all the way back to dig some more. I have to make a call near the Potter place. Suppose you ride along and talk to the father of the Potter boy?”

Ed Morgan liked investigations to be thorough, and I thought I should interview at least one of the five beneficiaries to make sure the doctor was telling me the truth as to why all the checks had been endorsed to him.

“All right,” I agreed.

Dr. Parks had to make a call at a farm a few miles out Ridge Road, where a child was in bed with measles. I waited in the car while he was inside. Afterward we drove about four miles farther on, to a well-kept farmhouse.

A tall, knobby-jointed man of about forty-five came from the barn when the doctor drove into the yard. I could also see a woman peeking through the curtains of a kitchen window, but she must have been too shy to come outside, because she stood there without moving all the time we were in the yard.

Dr. Parks introduced the man as Sidney Potter. He shook hands with me diffidently, obviously ill at ease in the presence of a city man.

“Mr. Quinn is an insurance investigator, Sid,” the doctor explained. “He wants to ask some questions about young Herman.”