The Drowner by John D. MacDonald Page A

audible over the hum of the air-conditioning, and three short blasts on a horn. Hanson got up quickly and went out and Stanial followed more slowly. A teak and mahogany runabout, beautifully maintained, floated about twenty feet from the dock below. The woman at the wheel turned the key off and smiled up. Two small children in bulky orange life vests sat on the transom seat looking solemnly up.
    “Courier service, dearie. Lorna’s phone is out and so is mine and probably yours is too. Festivities at Stu and Lorna’s, Kelse. Like five.” She was a freckled, gingery, sturdy little woman with a trim and hearty figure. She arched her back slightly and said, “Bring your silent chum too, sweetie.”
    “He’s just here on insurance,” Hanson said with no attempt at an introduction. “Tell you about it later.”
    “Let’s go fast, Mom,” one of the children said pleadingly.
    The woman waved her hand, gunned the engine and took off in a wide sparkling curve.
    “She never liked Lu,” Hanson said.
    “I beg your pardon?”
    “Mrs. Brye. They’re neighbors. She never cared much for Lu. I remember Lu saying Suey was trivial. What the hell did she expect Suey to do? Go picket the White House?” He turned and gave Stanial an absent nod. He looked at his watch. “Sorry I can’t help you, pal. I’ve got a tennis date. Got to sweat out the old before I pour in the new.”
    As Stanial was going down the stairs, Hanson called after him, “If you turn up anything, will you let me know about it?”
    “If you’d like.”
    “I’d like. Thanks.”
    Stanial went directly to the motel. Barbara was not in her room. He left the car and walked toward town and found her at the counter of the first small lunchroom he came to. After her start of surprise, her smile for him was quick and warm.
    After he had ordered and the counter girl moved away, he said in a low voice, “One unpleasant thing you can do, and probably pointless. Hanson has me tabbed as a cold-hearted bastard. You can enhance the image.”
    “Love to.”
    “Thanks. Stu and Lorna. Would that be the Reavers?”
    “Yes.”
    “And if you called up to say you were lonesome, you’d get invited to cocktails and dinner. And when the gathering gets damp enough, you can start whining about me, and what I’m trying to prove. Then see if you can get Kelsey onto his thesis that even murder, absurd as it is, is more plausible than suicide. Get them all playing the game, if you can stand it.”
    “Paul! Do you really think any of those people…”
    “No. But they live here. We don’t. Two objectives. They may spread a little light on motive, without knowing it. Remember anything that doesn’t sound too insane. Tomorrow that conversation will spread all over town. And that might open something else up. Think you can do it?”
    She held her hand out, palm up. “What’s that for?”
    “For a dime for that phone over there.”
    She came back looking smug. “She said she was glad I called because it proved her phone was working again. Stu will swing by and pick me up about four-thirty on his way home, and bring me back when it’s over.”
    “If it gets out of hand, find a phone and call me at the motel and then go on out onto the road and I’ll pick you up.”
    “I’m competent, Paul. Now I have sort of a… hard thing to do. Kelsey said I could take care of Lu’s things, and if I came across anything I thought he might want, I could have it sent to him. I called Mrs. Carey and she said I could have the key any time. The things she had with her at that beach, they brought them from the court house and left them in the apartment. And her car is there. I talked to her lawyer about it, on the phone. Walter Ennis. He seems quite nice. He’s fixing it so I can get the money out of her checking account. There isn’t much, he says. A little over eighty dollars. And I’m to find the car title and give it to him, and the car keys, and he’ll sell it for me. I’m to