“Police looking too?”
“Well, not specifically. But they know she is around and if they see her, they’ll take her in. Travis, she’s wearing a pink chambray jumper with big black pockets and she’s probably barefoot.”
“Driving a car?”
“No, thank God. Or maybe it would be better if she did. I don’t know. She probably did the same as last time, walked over to Route Thirty and hitched a ride. She doesn’t have any trouble getting a lift, as you can imagine. But I am so afraid that some… sick person might pick her up.”
“Can I help?”
“I can’t think of anything you could do. If she does show up there, you could call nine-three-four, two-six-six-one. That’s Tom’s answering service. We keep calling in every fifteen minutes or so to see if there’s word of her.”
“Are you with him?”
“No. We can cover more places this way. I usually run across him sooner or later.”
“Will you let me know when you find her?”
“If you wish. Yes. I’ll phone you.”
I hung up wondering why they didn’t think about the bottom of the lake. She’s had a try at about everything else except jumping out a high window. What was the word? Self-defenestration. Out the window I must go, I must go, I must go…
Then some fragment of old knowledge began to nudge at the back of my mind. After I had the eleven o’clock news on the television, I couldn’t pay attention because I was too busy roaming around the room trying to unearth what was trying to attract my attention.
Then a name surfaced, along with a man’s sallow face, bitter mouth, knowing eyes. Harry Simmons. A long talk, long ago, after a friend of a friend had died. He’d added a large chunk onto an existing insurance policy about five months before they found him afloat, face-down, in Biscayne Bay.
I sat on the bed and slowly reconstructed the pattern of part of his conversation. My thought about the lake and the high window had opened a small door to an old memory.
“With the jumpers and the drowners, McGee, you don’t pick up a pattern. That’s because a jumper damned near always makes it the first time, and a drowner is usually almost as successful, about the same rate as hangers. They get cut down maybe as rarely as the drowners get pulled out. So the patterns mostly come from the bleeders and the pill-takers and the shooters. Funny how many people survive a self-shooting. But if they don’t destroy a chunk of their brain, they get a chance at a second try. Like the bleeders cut themselves again, and the pill-takers keep trying. It’s always patterns. Never change. They pick the way that they want to go and keep after it until they make it. A pill-taker doesn’t turn into a jumper, and a drowner won’t shoot himself. Like they’ve got one picture of dying and that’s it and there’s no other way of going.”
All right, then say that Harry Simmons might probably admit a very rare exception. But Maurie Pearson Pike had opted for the pills, the razor, and the rope. Three methods.
I felt a prickling of the flesh on the backs of my hands. But it was a clumsy fit, no matter how you looked at it. The suffering husband making a narrow save each time. Or the kid sister? Was there a third party who could get close enough to Maurie?
What about motive? The big ones are love and money. The estate was “substantial.” What are the terms? Check it out through soft-voiced D. Wintin Hardahee. And noble suffering Tommy had made the discreet pass at Freckle-Girl. So on top of that we have a dead family physician labeled suicide, and he had treated Maureen, and does that make any sense or any fit? Penny believed with all her sturdy heart that Dr. Stewart Sherman could not have killed himself.
The tap at my door had to be Penny bringing back the two fifty-dollar bills, and as I went toward the door I was uncomfortably aware of a hollow feeling in the belly that was a lustful anticipation that maybe she could be induced to stay awhile.