Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 51, No. 9, September 2006

Poor Dumb Mouths[1] by Bill Crenshaw

“Same deal, Adam. Five bucks an hour, ten hours tops. Anything over ten’s a freebie.” McMorton thumbed the folder with a thumb unnaturally soft and pink, a thumb streaked from pinching the moist end of his unnaturally brown and foul cigar.

Adameus Clay took the folder from him delicately and with some disgust, though it didn’t show on his face. Disgust rarely showed on his face. He almost always appeared to be smiling, even in his sleep. It was a physiological quirk that he had often regretted, though he had to admit that in the long run it had probably done him more good than harm. But the run had been long indeed, and just when the end was in sight, five years until early retirement, along came the twins and...

“Adam. You hearin’ me?”

“Of course, Marvyn.”

“Well, don’t space out on me, hear? I mean, brother-in-law or no brother-in-law, you space out, you’re through. Jiminy. Like I was saying, this one shouldn’t be more than a four hour job. An hour with the beneficiary, an hour on the reports, an hour writing it all up. I’m giving you an extra hour for fumbles.” McMorton leaned far back in his swivel chair, which Clay thought a dangerous thing to do, given all that bulk, and somehow grinned around the cigar clamped between yellow-tinted teeth. Clay knew what was coming because the same thing came at this time every time. “But this one’s so easy,” said McMorton, “that even a PhD could do it.” Then he laughed, the one sound that by itself could twist Clay’s face into a reasonable facsimile of disgust. “Well, good to see ya and all, Adam, but I’m a busy man, busy man. I don’t get paid to sit on my duff like you high foreheads do.”

Clay bit back a torrent of abuse, thinking particularly of Kent’s torrent against the wormy Oswald in Act II of King Lear. To all appearances, however, he was still smiling vaguely. He forced his next words out with difficulty. “Uh, Marvyn, I need more money?” Somehow it came out as a question.

“Yeah, so do I. Five bucks. Period.”

“You pay other claims investigators more.”

“Other claims investigators? You an investigator? Look, Adam, old bean, old chap, I’m doing you a favor, right? Gift horse, right? I mean, I’m going out on a limb here. Ever hear of nepa, of nepa...”

“Nepotism.” Clay shuddered at the implications of the word and closed his eyes against the sight of the primary implication and its fat cigar.

“Right. I could lose my job.”

Clay could see that McMorton was about to laugh again, so he stood up quickly. “Well, thank you anyway, Marvyn. My best to Ruth. I’d better be...”

But it was too late, and it was beyond laughter and into guffawing. “Of course, if you find fraud here,” — McMorton broke up completely for some long seconds — “fraud here, Acme Home and Casualty will pay you fifteen percent of a hundred and eighty G’s. That’s... that’s...”

“Twenty-seven thousand dollars,” murmured Clay wistfully.

“Yeah.” Guffaw turned into bellow. “Fat chance.”

Which was the term Adameus Clay used to refer to his brother-in-law from that moment on.

Clay felt guilty all the way to the hospital.

He should be grateful, he knew, and he felt guilty that he wasn’t more grateful, but it was hard to be grateful to Fat Chance. He had even calmly and rationally drawn up a list of all the reasons that he should be grateful — his brother-in-law was providing extra money, was letting him work at a job for which he had no training, had not let age stand in the way. But for every reason to be grateful, there was an equally compelling reason to punch Fat Chance’s potato nose — you call that money, no one needs training for this, age deserves some respect.

“Oh, well,” he sighed as he eased into the parking lot, “make virtue of necessity.”

But it was hard to make virtue of this. He hated what he was about to do. After carefully wiping all traces of Fat Chance’s smeared thumbprints off the folder with a handkerchief that he promptly threw away, Clay had scanned the summary report for main points. Auto accident six weeks ago at dusk. Bridge abutment. One dead, Susan Cannon, good but not bestselling writer of inspirational novels. One survivor, husband and beneficiary, Henderson Cannon. Multiple injuries — broken bones, dislocations, contusions, lacerations, punctures. A man severely injured and not yet out of the hospital, a man undoubtedly still grieving, a man to whom a hundred and eighty thousand dollars probably meant nothing at this point in his life. And here I am, he thought, about to go through the pointless and cruel exercise of quizzing him about the accident just so the proper forms can be filled out in double triplicate. Clay had trouble just talking to strangers, but this kind of invasion...

He realized that he was still sitting in the car, engine running, trying to avoid the inevitable. For thirty seconds more he considered the possibility of driving back to Fat Chance’s office and tossing the file on his desk in a gesture of righteous contempt. Then he heard what he feared was a new rattling cough from the engine and immediately cut off the ignition. “Necessity is indeed the mother,” he sighed as he got out and locked up carefully, checking the doors twice. The maroon hood of his 1948 Studebaker shone with rich depths. He had owned the car for thirty-five years, had spent embarrassing sums maintaining and restoring her, had named her Brunhilde. He needed money, but even to think of selling her now... He wiped at an invisible spot on the paint with a new handkerchief, then headed for St. Ebenezer’s visitors’ entrance, pausing once behind his car to make sure he had lined it up precisely between the lines of the parking space.

He finally found Room 5501. “East Wing,” the orderly had said with a faint smirk. West Wing it was, last room in West Wing. Clay had walked the entire lengths of the two fifth floor corridors to find that out, and now he was sweating slightly and unpleasantly. He pulled down his coat, straightened his tie, took a deep breath, and knocked softly.

No answer, but the sounds of the television filtered through the door. He knocked again and pushed the door open just enough to put his head into the room. Cannon was sitting up in his bed, still bandaged in places, sections of the Wall Street Journal spread around him. He was giggling at the television. On the screen the coyote was riding a rocket into a wall of red sandstone while the roadrunner beep-beeped across the desert highway. Another giggle.

Clay cleared his throat. “Mr. Cannon?” He said it twice more before Cannon heard and turned to him, apparently embarrassed and angry as he killed the sound of the television with his remote control.

“Why don’t you try knocking?” he growled.

“I did. I’m sorry.” Clay gave himself a mental kick in the pants for the apology. It was like saying “Thank you, officer,” to the policeman who wrote you a ticket. He had done that once, too. “I’m sorry to disturb you, that is,” he added, trying to make some sense out of it. “I’m Adameus Clay, a claims representative from...”

Cannon giggled again. “What kind of name is Adameus?”

Clay shrugged and spread his hands as if in apology, looking for all the world as if he were smiling. “You may call me Adam.”

“Claims rep, huh? Well, where the hell have you been? I knew the lawyer threat would work. You guys are trying to stiff me.”

“No, Mr. Cannon, let me assure you that we are not. And please accept my apologies for the delay.” Now I’m apologizing for Fat Chance, he thought. This just isn’t worth it. “May I sit down?”

“Yes, you may sit down, Pops, but not in here. You go sit in accounts receivable and straighten up this bill.”

Clay was frozen with his hand on the chair he had been pulling out, his unsmile transfixed as if nailed to his face. “I’m not sure I follow you, Mr. Cannon.”

Cannon sank back onto his mountain of pillows. “Another nerd. You’d better follow me. I didn’t pay outrageous premiums just to have you dance away when I have an accident. I know my rights, Pops. When I buy health insurance, I expect it to pay off when I need it.”

“Mr. Cannon, I’m here about life insurance, not health. Your late wife’s policy, sir. My condolences.” Clay congratulated himself for maintaining his composure.

Cannon looked blank for a moment. “You’re not from Mountain Valley Mutual?”

“No, sir. I’m from Acme.”

“Oh. Oh. Well, why didn’t you say so, Pops? Those guys at Mountain Valley haven’t paid one penny on my bill here, and it’s a bill, let me tell you.”

Clay was suddenly in a hurry just to get it done and get out. “I hate to intrude on your hour of grief, Mr. Cannon, but I’m afraid I have a few questions to ask you.”

“You insurance people are all alike, you know? Here I’m thinking that you might be ready to hand over the check, in person even, but no, you snivel in here with phony condolences and more questions. Is it about the accident?”

Clay still stood by the chair. “Yes, I’m afraid so.”

“Forget it, Pops. Get out. I don’t want to see that little balding head poke around my door again unless it’s preceded by a hand with a check in it. I’ve been over that accident a dozen times. You’ve got reports, the police have reports, Mountain Valley has reports, all God’s children got reports, and they’ve all got the same bottom line. I want my money or I really will sue.”

Clay didn’t care if he did sue. He might enjoy seeing Fat Chance suffer a bit. But he did care about his hair, or what was left of his hair, especially with the twins. When they were twelve, he would be seventy, and he wanted at least to look young for them, but his hair had perversely begun thinning faster this year. So when Cannon made a reference to his little balding head, Clay looked almost angry, which meant he was furious. “There are some details, Mr. Cannon, that we need to check out.” It was the only thing he could think of to sweep to his revenge.

“That’s it, Pops. You’re sued. You and Everest and everybody. Take your four eyes and get out of here.”

“See you in court, Cannon,” Clay said before stalking from the room. He’d heard it in a movie once. It sounded good now. But in the elevator it sounded not so good, and he did pour out Kent’s torrent of abuse, but he aimed it at himself, muttering in spite of the quizzical faces behind him. So much for extra money, he thought. Well, at least when Fat Chance fires me, I can tell him off. So there is a good side to every situation.

But when he found that someone’s bumper had taken a two inch wide strip of paint off the driver’s door before putting a double-fist sized dent in Brunhilde’s front fender, he was convinced that the only side this situation had was an underside.

When the call came from Fat Chance two days later, it wasn’t at all what Clay was expecting. Fat Chance wanted to know where the report was. No, Cannon hadn’t called him, why should he? Well, being sorry wasn’t good enough. The report was on his desk by Friday or Adam could pick up pocket change someplace else.

Clay was unaccountably pleased. He had expected to be fired and was in part looking forward to it, but now he found himself eager for the second chance. And secretly he was glad for the excuse to put aside his writing, which he could scarcely admit he was doing, even to himself. He thought his short fiction was good; publishers didn’t. So now he was trying to write a hot pink romantic novel under a pseudonym, but he found the obligatory sex scenes embarrassing or amusing, and what he wrote, as he himself recognized the morning after, had all the seductiveness of a commencement address. To electrify the scenes, he was researching heaving bosoms, firm backsides, and the allure of the water- or sweat-drenched body on television commercials, and as long as he wrote exactly what he saw, the passages did seem to have some juice, but any embellishment on his part was viciously satirical. The need for money drove him on, but his pseudonym was Maress Beard, an anagram of “embarrassed.” The novel’s title was Love Me Now, My Love. Any excuse to put it aside was welcomed. Even Fat Chance.

So Clay for the first time approached his assignment with some eagerness. He wanted the paperwork done double quick now, and he would put in for three and a half hours even though the work would cost him six easy, just to stay on Fat Chance’s good side. He’d had sort of an interview with Cannon; he had accident reports, insurance applications, even the newspaper account of the accident, so he could fill out most of the forms and fudge what he didn’t know. He told himself that this was all a formality anyway. Acme would pay off, but only by the numbers.

Clay dropped the manuscript of Love Me Now, My Love into the bottom drawer and spread Acme’s paperwork across his desk. He’d have to start all over, read thoroughly this time. He began with the ambulance report and was struck again by the conglomeration of Cannon’s injuries, wincing at each cold detail. The emergency room write-up was even worse. He put both reports aside. He’d get to them later.

He picked up Acme’s own information, beginning with the application for Mrs. Cannon’s insurance. It was dull reading, mostly statistical, the have-you-ever-had, is-there-a-history-of variety, but he read line by line, detail by detail, unable to break his scholarly approach to serious reading even for this. When he finished, he found himself chewing on two of the details — the policy was six months old; there were no other life policies on Mrs. Cannon with other companies.

Mountain? he thought, staring off blankly. Mountain? Something about Cannon and a mountain? Mountain Valley, of course, but there was something else. As he thought of Cannon, he found himself running his fingers through his thinning hair and he was suddenly angry. “Everest,” he said aloud. Didn’t Cannon say something about Everest? And wasn’t that an insurance company? Life insurance or health?

He found Everest Insurance (“The Pinnacle of Protection”) in the Yellow Pages. Even if Cannon had lied on his insurance application to Acme about not having other life policies, would that give Acme grounds to negate the policy? And if it did, did Cannon deserve that kind of treatment from him? “Vengeance is petty, Adameus,” he said as he finished dialing, but he didn’t hang up.

He didn’t get far, either. He could almost see the sneer on the secretary’s face when she said, “We don’t just give out information on clients to any Joe who calls, y’know, bub.” She hung up before she heard his apology. Then he was angry again. Rudeness made him angry. There were no decent standards left. What had happened to courtesy, to respect? He called back. The same secretary answered.

“Hello,” said Clay, lowering his voice and rounding his vowels, “I’d like to speak to someone about taking out a group health insurance policy. I run a small business, fourteen employees, and we’re interested in...”

“I’m sorry, sir,” she answered in a voice distinctly more polite now, “but we don’t carry health. Now if your company needs life or fire or casualty...”

No, he told her, and thank you. She told him to have a nice day.

So, he thought. No health. Acme’s file showed the health policy at Mountain Valley, the company Cannon had mentioned. Maybe he meant a man named Everest. He called Mountain Valley and asked to speak to Mr. Everest. No one by that name. Just to be sure, he called Acme and Everest, asked both the same question, got the same answer. So perhaps Cannon had meant Everest Insurance, and perhaps he did have a life policy on his wife there. And maybe with other companies, too. For a moment Clay entertained the thought of murder, a diabolical plot to get rich from his wife’s apparently accidental death. He imagined calling every insurance company in the area and finding that Cannon had a huge policy on his wife at each one. “Pops” brings murderer to justice. More important, Adameus Clay makes better than a year’s salary in a week. Invest ten thousand dollars each for the twins now and they’d be able to go to college even if he were...

“Cut it out, Adameus,” he muttered. “Five dollars an hour and you’re being Walter Mitty here.” But he went back to the police report anyway.

It was gruesome. The car had hit the bridge abutment almost head on, impact on the passenger side. The car was virtually sheared in half. Woman apparently dead on impact, thrown through the windshield into the concrete pillar. Male driver wearing seat belt, multiple injuries. There were no skid marks. Investigating officer says mechanism of accident consistent with driver falling asleep at the wheel and drifting straight into abutment. Theory backed up later by victim interview: Victim claims to remember driving, then to remember waking up in hospital. Feels he fell asleep at the wheel.

There was more, but Clay wanted the reports he had seen earlier, the ambulance and emergency room reports with their lists of injuries. He found them. For the woman, no life support given at the scene. Man had to be extricated from the car with heavy tools and “jaws,” whatever they were. The injuries were listed more specifically on the emergency room report, and Adam had to reach back into his own college physiology class to remember what all the words meant — open fracture of the left clavicle, fracture of the right olecranon process, anterior dislocation of right shoulder, fracture of ribs eight through ten left side, lacerated liver and spleen, ruptured bladder, crushed metacarpals on right hand, broken nose, laceration of scalp, face, and neck, crushed right ankle. Clay shuddered and fought nausea, almost feeling the pain in each part of his own body as he read the report. He rubbed his elbow fitfully.

No, he thought, there’s no murder here. Death was riding too close for murder.

He finished filling out the report as quickly as he could.

The next day, before his first class, he took the report to Acme. He found himself badly shaken by the descriptions of the accident and injuries. He’d had nightmares all night, filled with screaming brakes, splintering glass, twisting metal, bodies flying to pieces, blood. It took him fifteen minutes more than usual to get to Acme, certain that every other driver was out to get him.

He gave the ungrateful Fat Chance his work, took his seventeen dollars and fifty cents without grace, got back into Brunhilde, and crept to the university, parking at the far side of the lot. He usually ate lunch at home, but today he would have chanced the Ptomaine Tower, as the students called the dining hall, rather than drive again. But the twins needed food, too, so he reluctantly climbed back into Brunhilde, stood his briefcase in the passenger seat, buckled in, and took his chances in the streets. At the Winn Dixie he parked as far away from the other cars as he could, and even though he spent his seventeen fifty and then some, he had only one bag to show for it, full of junior meats and strained prunes and the like, and the bag was heavy, so he was tired and irritated and sweating by the time he balanced it in front of his briefcase and strapped himself in again.

Driving was worse than ever. He felt absolutely paranoid until he finally saw his house two blocks away, and he was just feeling safe when some idiot in a jeep with a bumper made out of steel pipe jerked away from the curb and stalled out right in front of him. By all the laws of physics, he knew he couldn’t stop in time, but his reactions were fast and instinctive — he slammed on the brakes, cut the wheel to the left, flung his right arm to the grocery bag, and hit the jeep.

He realized that someone was asking him if he were okay. He looked around. The jeep was mashed into his front end, steam hissed from his radiator, jars of baby food were on the dash, the floor, in his lap, strained prunes and tapioca pudding oozing into the carpet. He shook his head. His head hurt. “People in the jeep okay?” he asked.

“We’re fine,” said a teenager with the unbuttoned shirt at his window. “Are you okay?”

Pain shot through his right shoulder and elbow and lodged in his hand. He looked down at his hand and realized that something might be broken. Slowly he turned to face the anxious boy. “Eureka,” he said, his eyes watering with pain even as he smiled.

They gave him something for the pain after they took X-rays and punched, kneaded, prodded, and probed. He was glad that Ginger was in the emergency room with him, even more glad that she had ridden with him in the ambulance. He had been near hysteria, not from the pain or fear, but from the absurdity of it all — two blocks from home, his house in sight, his precious car bleeding water and antifreeze and spouting steam, and him immobilized by the idiots from the jeep. He wanted to get home, to see the twins, to tell Ginger he was all right. He heard his own voice babbling, saw his left hand pointing to his house. “No sir, you stay right there, we’ve called an ambulance, don’t move, you might hurt yourself, stay put, sir.” A girl was crying somewhere. His frustration was blinding. Finally he made someone understand and someone ran to his house and got his wife. Only then had the sense of helplessness faded.

Now here in the hospital lobby it was back again, only slightly dulled by the painkiller. He held the phone away from his ear to protect his eardrum from Fat Chance’s howling. “You’re a real pip, Adam, you know that?” The voice carried far in the room. Heads turned. “I know you’re serious because you don’t have a sense of humor. And if you’re serious, you’re nuts. Now why don’t you go home, go to bed, and...”

“Marvyn, have you still got the report?”

“It’s right here on my desk. I’m not touching it until Monday morning. I’ve got a big meeting now, Adam old chap, so I’m going to hang...”

“Just look at the injuries, okay? Just open the file and look. Don’t they strike you as odd? Marvyn? Are you there, Marvyn?”

“You’re off your doodle, Adam. You’re bonkers. Goodbye.”

Hearing the dial tone was something of a relief.

“He didn’t believe you,” said Ginger. It was not a question.

Adam didn’t really respond to her remark until they were in the cab, and even then he talked as much to keep his mind off the fact that he was on the streets again as to discuss the problem.

“Well,” he said. “Well.”

“Well?” said Ginger, teasing.

“Well, he’s probably right, Ginger. He deals with this sort of thing daily. I don’t know anything about it. Imagine my reaction if he was to tell me I had mistranslated a section of Beowulf.”

“Were.”

“What?”

“You said ’if he was,’ Adam. You don’t make that kind of mistake unless you’re upset. Try to relax.”

He lapsed into a long silence. Defeat settled like dust on his shoulders. He’d smashed his car. He’d hurt himself and frightened his wife. He’d missed his afternoon classes. He was underpaid, he hadn’t saved, he couldn’t sell his writing. He was too old for the twins, too old for Ginger, too old to drive, to teach, to think. There wasn’t enough money, wasn’t enough time, wasn’t enough anything. And he’d made a fool of himself in front of Fat Chance — of all people.

“And I use the word loosely,” he mumbled.

“What?” said Ginger.

“What?” answered Adam, looking up suddenly as if he’d been caught sleeping in class.

“What did you say, Adam?”

“Damn,” he said, surprising even himself. “Driver, take us to 2607 Craig Road, please.”

Dark eyes squinted in the rearview mirror. “That okay by you, lady?”

“Yes,” said Ginger, and they sat in silence until the cab came to a halt.

“Wait,” Clay ordered as he got out of the cab. The driver shrugged and lit a bent cigarette.

Just act as if you know what you’re doing, Clay thought as he lengthened his step into what he hoped was a purposeful stride toward Fat Chance’s office.

“Marvyn still in, Miss Andress?” he asked almost casually as he passed the desk and reached for the office door.

Miss Andress half rose as if to stop him. “No, Mr. Clay. He’s gone for the day.”

“Fine,” he said as he opened the door. “He said he’d leave a folder on his desk,” and with that he was in the office. It wasn’t a lie exactly, he told himself, any more than Marvyn’s meeting. But at the sight of the desk he felt his confidence drain again. It was chaos, paper piled everywhere. Not a square centimeter of desk top was visible. He walked around the desk and stood at Fat Chance’s chair, his eyes dancing furiously for the report. The secretary appeared in the doorway.

“Ah, Miss Andress. Now I understand why my brother-in-law requires such a competent secretary.” He waved his left hand vaguely, looking helpless. “If you’d be so kind...”

Miss Andress allowed a smile to twitch at her lips. “Exactly what do you need, Mr. Clay?”

“The Cannon file, please.”

She plucked it from the mess with a dextrous flick of a magician’s wrist.

“You amaze me, Miss Andress. Marvyn would be lost without you, I’m sure.”

Another twitch encouraged him.

“Indeed,” he continued, “I dare say that he is often lost despite you?” He made it lilt like a question, this time intentionally, and received a genuine smile in return.

“I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that, Mr. Clay.”

“I’ll pretend I didn’t say it, Miss Andress.”

They allowed themselves a small laugh as they left the office.

“I hope you don’t have much you need to do, Mr. Clay. Those reports can be so tedious.”

“Not much, Miss Andress.” Just the name of the ambulance attendant, he thought. “Good day.”

He was beaming as he got back into the cab. “Home, James,” he announced.

The driver jerked his thumb at his ID. “That’s Jimbo, Mac.”

“Adam,” said Ginger as she reached for his hand, “are you all right?”

“All right?” He kissed her cheek. “I was terrific.”

It didn’t take long for Adam to feel his confidence drain yet once more. The ambulance that had picked up the Cannons was based in DeWitt, in the next county, a rural county with miles of narrow country roads twisting away from the interstate. Too far for a cab. That meant hiring a sitter. It also meant riding in Ginger’s ’72 Volkswagen Beetle on those roads where traffic came at you just inches away, and the Bug lacked for Adam the comforting dead weight armor of excess steel. He spent a restless night and decided finally to go, shame winning over fear, because Hogan Lewis, the EMT he had reached, had changed his plans in order to meet with Adam the next morning, and Adam was too embarrassed to call back and cancel.

He survived the drive by concentrating on what he was after and on trying to discover exactly how he had gotten himself into this situation. Why was it so important to pursue this? Cannon’s insult? Fat Chance’s laughter? This is idiocy, he thought. He had no experience in these matters. Surely he could accept Fat Chance’s opinion as valid. Good Lord, he thought suddenly. Is it that I’m seeking Marvyn’s approval? The idea horrified him.

“Do you like your brother?” he asked, then realized how strange it must sound since he had said nothing at all for the last fifteen minutes.

Ginger kept her eyes on the road. “Really beautiful country, don’t you think?”

“Which one of you is the changeling?”

She smiled and patted his knee.

What he wanted, he finally decided, was a second opinion. He wanted to understand the mechanism of injury.

“Oh, yes, I remember that accident well,” said Lewis over a second cup of coffee at his kitchen table. “We’re a volunteer service in this county, Mr. Clay. Not enough action around here to support a paid service. We don’t see as much as the city units do, thank God. That accident was one of the worst. I remember it too well.”

“Did anything... do you think...” Adam broke off and stared at his coffee, glancing first to Ginger at his right before looking back at Lewis. “I don’t know quite what to ask, Mr. Lewis. I’ve read the reports and the injuries strike me as unusual. But I’m not an expert in these matters.”

“Neither am I. Yeah, lots of injuries, bad ones. But it was a bad wreck. You can’t believe what the car looked like.”

Adam swallowed and found it hard to swallow. “I’m sorry,” he said. “This must be unpleasant for you.”

“It is,” said Lewis. “Not real good for you, either, from the way you look.”

Adam felt that Lewis was waiting for something from him, but he had no idea what it was. “I imagine these ambulance calls can be very trying.”

Lewis shifted back in his chair. “Can be.”

I’m losing him, thought Adam. What am I doing wrong? “Lots of blood sometimes?” He could think of nothing else to say, but that sounded terrible even as he said it.

“Sometimes,” said Lewis.

Ginger’s hand brushed Lewis’s arm with the lightest of touches. “Mr. Lewis, I guess we should have made it clear that whatever suspicions we have are directed at the occupants of the car only.” She met Lewis’s eyes for a half second before adding, “Could I have some more coffee, please?” and she reached for the pot.

Lewis leaned forward, put his elbows on the table, and stared into Adam’s eyes. “Not that time,” he said. “Not enough blood that time.”

“What do you mean?”

“Mr. Clay, you’ve got to picture what things are like. It’s just getting dark. Winter then, remember. I’m sitting down right here, halfway through my supper, when the call comes in. We get out there, it’s really dark, but there’s headlights and floodlights, the cops’ blue lights flashing, our red and whites flashing, big clouds of exhaust fumes, and there’s what might have been a car and what might have been people. Noise, dark, cold, adrenalin, death, okay? The woman was dead, anybody could see that right off. The ER doctor wouldn’t even let us unload her. We took her right to the morgue. You can’t get all of that out of you right away. Something bothered me later that didn’t bother me then. There wasn’t enough blood at the scene. There was blood around her, on her, but not enough.” He paused a second. “To tell you the truth, Mr. Clay, I think she died some time before she went through that windshield.”

Clay let his breath out slowly and loudly. “Thank you, Mr. Lewis. I thought that something was wrong here. It is quite a relief to hear you say that.”

“No more than it is to me.”

“Could I ask you about the husband? He...”

“Banged up really bad.”

“Anything unusual about the injuries? I have a list here.” He passed the emergency room report to Lewis.

Lewis read for a few moments in silence. “Thought that was right,” he said softly.

“What, Mr. Lewis?” asked Clay.

“Oh, I see where the broken ribs got the liver. That’s what I thought in the field, but no way to tell for sure out there.”

“Can you describe the mechanism of injury for the ones on that list? For the liver and ribs?”

“I can try. The guy was wearing his seat belt and shoulder harness way too loose. He’d smack into them hard. The harness could have gotten the ribs, or he might have had the belts so loose that he got a little of the steering wheel. Belt that loose could help that bladder rupture, too, especially if it’s full. Broken left clavicle and, uh, yeah, these deep abdominal contusions — same thing, seat belt too high, shoulder harness too loose.”

“Pardon me for saying this, but I thought you said you weren’t an expert in these matters.”

“A lot of this is textbook answers, Mr. Clay. And I saw that wreck. I saw it, understand?”

Adam nodded.

“Let’s see,” Lewis continued. “Crushed ankle probably from the car just buckling back on his foot. The passenger side was displaced almost six inches back. Lacerations from flying glass. Broken nose? Could be steering wheel, could be missile of some sort. Broken hand, same thing. Fracture of the olecranon process? Now that’s harder. That’s this bone here, sticks out behind your elbow, part of the joint. Usually takes a direct blow or some strong leverage to break it. Something loose in the back seat, on the ledge, maybe, smacked it from behind. Dislocated shoulder, maybe whatever got his elbow. Maybe just impact. It was a hell of an impact.”

“Have you ever connected the husband with your belief that Mrs. Cannon was dead before impact?”

Lewis looked uncomfortable. “Got to, don’t you? But I don’t see how.”

“Have you ever fallen asleep at the wheel, Mr. Lewis?”

“Sorta nodded off once or twice. Hitting the shoulder woke me up.”

“Where were your hands when you woke up?”

Lewis sat straighter, closed his eyes, and raised his hands. “On the steering wheel still,” he said.

“So were mine, when it’s happened to me. If Cannon went to sleep at the wheel, then I think that’s where his hands would be, too. But that makes those injuries difficult to explain.”

“Maybe he woke up.”

“If I had been he and had waked up, I would have hit my brakes. There were no skid marks. I would have swerved. He didn’t. Now, Mr. Lewis, would you find all of this easier to explain if Mr. Cannon had hit that bridge on purpose? And would you find broken metacarpals, dislocated shoulder, and fracture of the olecranon process easier to explain if Mr. Cannon had been using his right arm and hand to prop up the body of his dead wife so that she would in fact go through the windshield and hit that abutment, thereby duplicating the expected mechanism of injury and mangling her beyond...”

“Of course,” whispered Lewis, sinking back into his chair as if suddenly tired. “That’s why his belts were so loose — so he could reach over. Her body smashed his arm into the dash on its way out. Why didn’t I see it before?”

“I didn’t see it, either,” said Clay, raising his bandaged right hand, “until it happened to me.” He winced at the pain in his shoulder and elbow and quickly added, grinning ruefully at Ginger, “With a bag of groceries, that is.”

“You’re nuts, you know that? Fruitcake. Bananas.”

Fat Chance paused long enough to remove the bitten-off butt of his cigar from his tongue. Clay took advantage while he could.

“Let me lay it out for you, Marv.” He’d heard that the night before on a Dragnet rerun. He found he was watching more cop shows. “It seems to me that you can’t lose here. You forward my report to your boss. One of three things happens. One — he follows up and I’m right and we prove it. You get part of the credit for saving the company big bucks. Maybe a promotion. Two — he follows up but we can’t get enough evidence to prove the theory. You’re still due for congratulations for hiring good people and for making the company sharper on elaborate fraud cases. Three — I am, as you say, a dessert plate. You blame me and can me and never have to see me again except at family reunions. At best you’re a hero. At worst I’m your goat.”

Fat Chance stared at Clay while absently picking bits of tobacco from his tongue. “You’re right,” he said finally. “Nuts, understand, but right.”

“Let me talk to him.”

“No way. I’ll send the report up.”

“If I’m wrong, he’ll have me to chew out in person. He won’t have to chew you to get me.”

Fat Chance hit his intercom. “Shirley, see if Mr. Carroll can see Mr. Clay. Tell him it’s about possible fraud. Buzz me when you know.”

“That’s Dr. Clay,” said Clay with a genuine smile, “but we’ll keep that a family secret, eh, Marv?”

Clay deposited twenty thousand of his bonus in trust funds for the twins. He spent something over three thousand dollars of the rest on a very friendly word processing system to help him write his torrid romance. He gave the rest to Ginger, insisting that she spend it on something frivolous. She had the dents and holes taken out of Brunhilde, had her repainted and polished, and parked her shining in the driveway as a surprise. The rest she invested.

Everybody was happy. Everest was happy, and paid him a thousand dollars, which was nice of them, if cheap. Mountain Valley Mutual offered Clay a job, which flattered and amused him, and which he politely declined. Even Fat Chance was happy. After Acme, Everest, and Mountain Valley Mutual had convinced Mrs. Cannon’s parents that an exhumation would be wise, and after an autopsy found that the heart had been skewered clean through by a thin, round, sharp object, like an ice pick, and after Cannon had pled guilty to reduced charges, Fat Chance even threw his arm around Clay and said to his boss, “Yessir, Mr. Carroll, real proud of this brother-in-law of mine. Threw him this case special. Knew if something smelled, he’d find it.” And Clay had stood there, apparently smiling.

So everybody was happy, but Clay had been happiest longest of all. Almost from the first moment that he had edged into Mr. Carroll’s chrome and glass office to make his pitch for fraud, he had known things were going to work out.

“How do you do?” he had said. “My name is Adameus Clay.”

“Adameus?” puffed Carroll. “Don’t you mean Amadeus?”

Clay shrugged apologetically. “My mother meant Amadeus.”

“Did she, by thunder?” Carroll boomed. “Well, my name is A. Belk Carroll. My mother, bless her soul, named me for her favorite department store and her favorite brand name patent medicine. Can you guess what the ‘A’ stands for?”

Clay looked down at the letterhead on the report he was holding. “Acme?” he ventured.

“I’ve never forgiven her for that,” Carroll said, “until now. Sit down, Adameus. I think we’re going to like each other.”

And they did.