The Second Richard Deming Mystery MEGAPACK®

by Deming, Richard

  It seemed a rather loose way to run a county government, but with such a small tax roll, it was a lot more practical than paying the salaries of a lot of fulltime employees who had nothing to do.

  I said, “If you’re secretary to the county cleric, I guess you won’t have to phone anyone. I just want to look up some death records to establish some insurance claims.”

  I handed her one of my cards and she studied it with interest. Then she got up from her chair, raised a gate in the counter and stepped out into the corridor. “Just follow me, Mr. Quinn.”

  She led me to the door labeled COUNTY CLERK and into the room. Moving behind a counter there, she asked, “What year?”

  “This one. July and August.” I took out my list and looked at it. “The first one is Herman Potter, died July ninth.”

  “I remember that name,” she said, lifting a large ledger from beneath the counter. “He was the first typhoid death. Only eighteen years old, too.” She located the proper page and reversed the book so I could examine it.

  After studying the entry, which matched my notes in every detail, I said, “Next is Mrs. Henrietta Skinner, July fifteenth.”

  She found that entry for me and it also checked out. Mrs. Martha Colvin, Mrs. Helen Jordan and Abel Hicks, who had died respectively on July twenty-first, August third and ninth, also checked out.

  “Thanks,” I said. “Do you happen to know an insurance broker named Paul Manners?”

  She furrowed her brow, then shook her head. In an apologetic tone she said, “No. I know all of the townspeople by sight, but I still don’t know all their names. Does he live in town?”

  “His address is R.D.”

  “That would be Ridge Road,” she said. “He probably lives on a farm out that way. I don’t know many of the farmers around here.”

  “Where do I find Doctor Emmet Parks? Is his office nearby?”

  “Doc? Just go east on Main Street one block. It’s a big frame house on the left. You can’t miss it, because it’s being remodeled into a new clinic and there’ll be workmen around. It’s also right next door to the post office.”

  I thanked her again, left the courthouse and drove one block east on Main. It wasn’t hard to spot the doctor’s house. The framework of a long, one-story addition was attached to one side of it and a couple of workmen were lathing the inside walls. Just west of the house, on the side opposite the new addition, was a small, one-room frame building with a sign above the door reading U.S. POST OFFICE.

  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.”

  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.

&nbs
p; “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?”