Ричард Деминг - The Second Richard Deming Mystery MEGAPACK®

Sidney Potter’s expression became sad. “The boy was only eighteen, Mr. Quinn. I only took out the insurance on him to save money for him to buy his own farm some day. I got another boy twenty, and I couldn’t leave them both this farm. Doc advised me as how insurance was a way to save, not just get death benefits. I bought it for that, not to make a profit on my own boy’s death.”

“I understand,” I said.

“We all tooken sick, but the Lord chose to save me and Minnie and our older boy, and just took Herman. Doc says the fever was from the well. He had me put some stuff in it, and we ain’t had no trouble since.”

“All the others were traceable to well water too,” Dr. Parks said to me. “I’ve had them all treated and have been regularly testing the water, as well as the water from other wells all over the county. I’m county health officer, among my other duties.”

I wanted to nail things down completely, since I had gone this far. I said, “You got your ten-thousand-dollar insurance payment all right, didn’t you, Mr. Potter?”

The man gave me a suspicious look.

“Mr. Quinn works for the insurance company which sent you the money,” Dr. Parks explained, not quite accurately. “He merely wants to make sure you got the check.” He turned to me. “We don’t have much theft around here, but naturally no one advertises keeping a lot of money around the place. No one aside from me knows Sid was paid an insurance claim. He’s naturally a little hesitant about admitting it to strangers.”

“I see. I won’t tell anyone but my office, Mr. Potter. You did receive the check then?”

“Yeah,” he said reluctantly. “Ten thousand dollars, for which I thank you kindly. I had Doc cash it for me over to Holoyke. It’s hid real good, so you don’t have to worry about nobody but me and Minnie ever finding it.”

“That’s all I wanted to know,” I told him. “I guess that winds up my investigation, Doctor.”

As we drove away, the woman was still peering through the kitchen curtains. Glancing back, I saw a boy of about twenty emerge from the barn, from where he apparently had been watching us all the time we were in the yard. When I called him to the doctor’s attention, he glanced over his shoulder.

“That’s Sid Junior,” he said. “The older boy. He’s as shy of outsiders as his mother. You noticed her standing in the kitchen window, I suppose.”

“Uh-huh,” I said. “I can understand how an insurance salesman from outside wouldn’t stand a chance in these parts.”

It was time for lunch when we got back to town. The doctor invited me to lunch with him and took me to a coffee shop on the square, presumably the same one where the sheriff had been when I visited the courthouse.

Dr. Parks knew every customer there, and introduced me to all of them. I met the sheriff, a fat, elderly man named Tom Gaines, District Attorney Charles Hayes, who was a middle-aged balding man, and an assortment of fanners and merchants. We sat at a table with the sheriff and the D.A.

Emma Pruett came in as we were ordering. “Hi, boss,” she said to Dr. Parks, then smiled at the district attorney. “Hi, boss.”

We all rose and the sheriff pulled up a chair for her to join us.

“Sheriff Gaines is about the only person at the courthouse who isn’t my boss,” she said to me. “I’m everybody’s secretary or assistant.”

“That’s right, you do work for Dr. Parks, don’t you?” I said. “You told me you were secretary to the coroner, among your other duties.”

“Plus secretary to the county health officer and the county clerk,” she said. “He’s all three.”

“You’re county clerk?” I asked the doctor in surprise.

“We all wear multiple hats around here,” he said with a grin. “County clerk is quite an important job. It pays a hundred and twenty dollars a year.”

“Doc is also postmaster,” District Attorney Hayes said. “He practically runs the county.”

I gave the doctor another surprised look.

“That’s a tough job too,” he said. “The mail truck from Holoyke arrives at ten each morning. Sometimes there are as many as a dozen letters and packages. I sort the mail from about ten to ten-fifteen, and an old fellow named Joe Husbands delivers it. Joe’s on duty at the post office, except when he’s delivering the mail, to weigh packages and sell stamps. He gets maybe six customers a day.”

“This is a real active place,” Sheriff Gaines said sardonically. “I made eight arrests last year, all either for public drunkenness or disturbing the peace.”

After lunch Dr. Parks drove me back to his house, where I picked up my car. I was entering the square, with the intention of driving around it and continuing on out of town, when I suddenly remembered a remark Sidney Potter had made, and also a comment the doctor had made while we were at the farm. A fantastic thought occurred to me. Changing my mind, I parked in front of the courthouse.

This time Sheriff Gaines was in his office. He gave me a smile of welcome.

“Sheriff, do you know Paul Manners?” I asked.

He looked blank. “Manners? No, I don’t believe so.”

“He’s an insurance broker. Lives out on R.D. 1, or so I was told.”

He gave his head a puzzled shake. “Only one I know around here who sells insurance is Doc Parks. He even sold me my policy.”

My thought hadn’t been so fantastic after all. In fact, it had been the logical answer.

“Thanks,” I said, and left the office.

Emma Pruett was again behind the information counter.

“May I bother you to look at some more records?” I asked.

“Of course,” she said. “It’s a relief to have something to do for a change.”

We returned to the county clerk’s office. Consulting the notes I had taken on Paul Manners, I first looked up his birth registration. He was recorded as having been born on April 2, 1918. On his application for an insurance broker’s license, he had listed his wife’s maiden name as Gertrude Booker and her birth date as June 4, 1920. Sure enough, that record was on file too.

Just to see how thorough the doctor had been, I had Emma check for their marriage record. I didn’t know the supposed date of marriage, but I guessed it would be no earlier than 1936, as Gertrude would have been sixteen then. Starting with that year, Emma checked forward. The record showed they were married in 1940.

I had Emma check for the birth records of all five persons whose death claims had been paid, and found them all in order too. I had no doubt that in the cases of the eighty-year-old grandfather and the three married women, I would find birth records of their spouses and marriage records, but I didn’t bother to look for them.

“Is there more than one undertaker in town?” I asked Emma.

“No, just Gerard Boggs. He’s out past Doc Parks on East Main about a block and a half.”

“Thanks,” I said. “You’ve been very helpful.”

I had a brief visit with the undertaker, then returned to the doctor’s house. He seemed a little surprised to see me, but he courteously invited me into his office.

When we were both seated and he had his pipe going, I said, “I was on my way out of town when something Sidney Potter said, and something you said a few moments later, recurred to me. Potter said you had advised him that insurance was a way to save, and not just get death benefits. He didn’t say Paul Manners advised him. He said you. I might have passed that, merely assuming Potter had come to you for advice after being contacted by the insurance salesman, if you hadn’t mentioned a few moments later that no one but you and Potter knew he had received an insurance check. Now why wouldn’t Paul Manners, who sold the policy and no doubt helped Potter prepare his claim, know that he’d received payment?”