If Death Ever Slept

Susan’s fingers had gripped my arm, with more muscle than I would have guessed she had. Apparently just realizing it, she took her hand back and said, “I beg your pardon.” Her voice was low, as always, and Bill Brundage was talking, but I caught it, and that’s what she said. I reached across her lap to the chair on the other side and flipped the switch on the control box.

“Corey Brigham?” she said. “He said Corey Brigham, didn’t he?”

“He certainly did.” I got up, went to the door, turned on lights, and came back. “I’m going to tell Mr. Jarrell. Do you want to come?”

“What?” Her face tilted up. It was shocked. “Oh, of course, tell them. You tell them.”

Evidently she wasn’t coming, so I left her. Going along the corridor I was thinking that the news might not be news to one of them. It was even possible that it hadn’t been news to Susan. At the card table in the lounge they were in the middle of a hand, and I went and stood by until the last trick was raked in.

“I wasted my queen, damn it,” Jarrell said. He turned to me. “Anything new, Goodwin?”

“Not from the district attorney,” I told him. “Just routine, about the last time I saw Jim Eber-and for me the only time. Now he’ll be asking about the last time I saw Corey Brigham. You too. All of you.”

I had three of their faces: Jarrell, Trella, and Wyman. Nora was shuffling. None of them told me anything. There was no point in prolonging it, so I went on. “Something new on TV just now. The body of Corey Brigham has been found in a parked car. Shot. Murdered.”

Jarrell said, “Good God. No!” Nora stopped shuffling and her head jerked to me. Trella’s blue eyes stretched at me. Wyman said, “You wouldn’t be pulling a gag, would you?”

“No gag. Your wife was there, I mean in the studio. She heard it.”

Wyman shoved his chair back and was up and gone. Jarrell demanded, “Found in a car? Whose car?”

“I don’t know. For what I do know I’ll give you the broadcast verbatim. I’m good at that.” I did so, not trying to copy Bill Brundage’s delivery, just his words. At the end I added, “Now you know all I know.”

Trella spoke. “You said he was murdered. That didn’t say murder. He might have shot himself.”

I shook my head. “No gun in the car.”

“Anyway,” Nora said, “he wouldn’t have got under a rug. If Corey Brigham was going to shoot himself he would do it in the dining room of the Penguin Club.” It wasn’t as mean as it reads; she was merely stating a fact.