“I see.” Grundy rose, and in the act belched softly. “Say, Doc, what’s good for gas?”
“See a doctor.”
Grundy thanked him.
“You’re entirely welcome. We’ll see who’s an old fool!”
Outside, Grundy thought how wonderful it would be for his gas if he dropped in at the nearest bar and lowered his nose into several seidels of beer. But duty was duty, so instead he walked over to Free’s Drug Store. He went reluctantly, because what he dreaded most of all was to turn up evidence that Slater O’Shea had been plowed under by Princess O’Shea who, as things now looked, stood almost alone in the field, with Aunt Lallie O’Shea possibly skulking behind, ready to lend a hand. Grundy was unmarried, but it had occurred to him on several occasions recently that if he were ever crazy enough to consider committing matrimony, Prin O’Shea could easily become the cause of the crime.
The lieutenant sighed, rubbed his taut belly and entered the air-conditioned precincts of Free’s Drug Store. He made his way to the rear of the store, where Orville Free was busy with the mysterious ingredients of a prescription. Grundy told a clerk smelling of hair tonic that he would wait until Mr. Free was free; and while he waited for Mr. Free to be free he looked around for Prin, who should have been there but wasn’t. Apparently she meant to goof off from work until her uncle was properly disposed of. He felt rather relieved.
Free emerged from his druid’s cubicle. He was a small red man wearing a starched white jacket, and the expressions of his face and voice were measured to the requirements of the occasion — as if they also, like the contents of his jars and bottles, were prescriptive ingredients. The pharmacist and Grundy had gone to school together at South Cibola City High. Grundy had beaten him up regularly during recess, he recalled with guilty satisfaction.
“Sherm,” Orville Free said with a precise nod. “What can I do for you?”
“Hello, Orv. I’m after information about a drug. It’s a synthetic substitute for insulin used in the treatment of diabetes.”
“And put out under various trade names. Yes? What about it?”
“You carry the stuff in stock? Dispense it?”
“Of course. On prescription. You have diabetes, Sherm?” Orville, too, remembered the beatings.
“No, gas. I’d like to see your prescription file.”
The pharmacist looked shocked. But then he braced himself and said coldly, “Come on around in here.”
Grundy followed him into the holy of holies, and Free hauled down his prescription file for Grundy’s examination. Almost an hour later he was still at it.
“Do you fill all prescriptions for the Slater O’Shea family, Orv?”
“I would think so,” replied Free, “seeing that Slater had a charge here and they buy-and-charge with me all the time.”
Grundy went back two years. There was no O’Shea on record as having had the substitute for insulin prescribed. There were other drug stores in Cibola City, of course, and he would have to check them all, but Grundy had the glum feeling that results elsewhere would be no more fruitful.
The pharmacist was looking inquisitive as Lieutenant Grundy finished. “What’s up, Sherm?”
“Official,” Grundy said. “Top secret.” He hesitated before asking what he wanted next to ask. But he could discover no way to ask it without asking it. “Orv... could some of this stuff have been swiped from your supply without you missing it?”
“What an idea!” Orville Free said indignantly. “Certainly not.”
“Well, have you missed any?”
“Of course not!”
“How do you know?” Lieutenant Grundy asked with morbid pleasure. “Have you checked what you’ve dispensed against your inventory of supply?”
“No,” the pharmacist said, drawing himself up like an offended potentate. “I don’t mind telling you, Sherman, I don’t care for your line of questioning.”
“Never mind that, now. Princess O’Shea works for you, I believe?”
“You know darn well she does.”
“Then where is she?”
“Don’t you know her uncle, Slater O’Shea, died suddenly? She’s home, mourning. What kind of police brutality are you up to, Sherm Grundy? Why do you bring that lovely child’s name into this... this third degree!” Orville Free was completely off-balance now, Grundy noted sadistically. In a way, it was like the old fine days of the school playground beatings.
“I’m doing the questioning, Orv,” Grundy said in a crisp voice. “Now tell me something, and I warn you not to read anything into my question. Does Princess O’Shea have access to your prescription department?”
“She has access to the whole store, you fool,” Free said shortly. “What are you suggesting, with that foul police mentality of yours?”
“Nothing,” Grundy said, “nothing at all. Well, thanks, Orv. Remember — hush-hush.”
“Oh,” Orville Free said, “go... go fish!”
10
Lieutenant Grundy waited in the late Slater O’Shea’s living room while Mrs. Dolan went upstairs to fetch Miss Lallie O’Shea. Glancing idly through the sliding glass doors to the terrace beyond, Grundy was momentarily electrified. Little Cousin Peet was lying naked out there on a pad. But then he saw that she was not naked, kept from being so by two strategic strips of cloth of the same fleshy shade as her succulent hide.
In a canvas chair nearby skulked Brady O’Shea. His dark face was sullen, the lower lip protruding murderously, the eyes going slowly over Peet’s body like a vacuum cleaner.
Grundy was actually conscious of a slight chill. Of the candidates wishful thinking proposed for the position of Slater’s murderer — Twig possibly excepted — Brady was Grundy’s favorite. There was a quality in that handsome, glowering face that suggested violence. Poisoning, however... Grundy shook his head. Every theory in this case carried with it its own built-in objection.
He was almost relieved when this nakedly expressive pair’s little big-handed aunt entered the room.
“I don’t like you, Lieutenant Grundy,” was Lallie O’Shea’s greeting. “Why do you keep coming around?”
“This time, Miss O’Shea, it’s to tell you that the autopsy on your brother has been completed.”
“And of course you found out that Slater died of natural causes, as I told you from the beginning.”
“You were mistaken, Miss O’Shea. Your brother died of an unnatural cause. He was poisoned.”
“Stuff,” said the dainty little lady; she leaned forward and peered at him with an I-smell-something-bad expression. “You’re just making that up to annoy me.”
“Miss O’Shea, I’m a policeman, not a Halloween joker. The county coroner’s physician reports that your brother died of poisoning.”
“Then he’s as incompetent as you are. Who on earth would want to poison Slater?”
“That’s what I’m trying to find out.”
Aunt Lallie sniffed. “And what was he poisoned with? Tell me that. Or can you?”
“It’s a drug recently developed as a substitute for insulin. Used in the treatment of diabetes.”
“Well, no one here is diabetic,” snapped Aunt Lallie, “and who but a diabetic would even think of using such a thing? The whole thing is absurd.”
“Maybe not, Miss O’Shea. This drug has a delayed action, which could have certain advantages for a poisoner. It can be swallowed, as it undoubtedly was, without suspicion. Also, the victim falls into a coma and dies, and the death could pass for a natural death. And finally, though it’s not common, it could be at least as readily available to a certain person as commoner drugs or poisons.”
Lallie O’Shea stood uncharacteristically looking at him as he spoke, and for some time afterward, her scoffing regality seeming shaken by her discovery that he was able to put several ideas together in logical sequence. All at once she stalked over to the terrace doors and opened one of them.