Jealous Woman by James M. Cain

Author:James M. Cain [Cain, James M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-4532-9159-7
Publisher: MysteriousPress.com/Open Road
Published: 2012-11-27T21:17:00+00:00

9

I WAS OUT ON the street, waiting for Jane, while she stood by with the maid on some stuff the cops had to wind up, and I had taken quite a few turns up and down the block before I noticed Keyes around the corner, staring at the river with that same look in his eyes he’d had that night in the car, before Sperry was killed. I strolled over, and it was a minute or two before he said: “Ed, when somebody dies, you deliver the indemnity check in person?”

“Oh, always.”

“On a suicide case, how does the woman act?”

“The widow?”

“How does she take it?”

“Well, she’s generally upset. Naturally.”

“They just hate it.”

“Well, who does love an undertaker?”

“That’s not quite it. What they feel is not grief. It’s resentment. Maybe they keep quiet about it, as a matter of pride. But they’ve got that look in their eye. They regard it as an insult, a reflection on the marriage, and especially a reflection on themselves. ... Did you get anything like that in there?”

“I thought she behaved with great dignity.”

“But how much bitterness did she show?”

“I didn’t notice any.”

“Nor I either. I’ve been with her now for a considerable part of two whole days, and I’ve been struck by her complete freedom from rancor. She’s cracked up a few times, but there have been no hard feelings, and in fact when I’ve called her attention to one or two peculiar things about it she’s always come back with something that showed she preferred to regard it as an accident. Now tonight she says she saw it happen, and kept it concealed for legal reasons—but they were exactly the kind of reasons she would have placed before me, if it all took place as she says it did. Furthermore, it wouldn’t be possible for a woman to live a week or more in the same hotel as her husband’s former wife, and not know where her room was. Furthermore, even without law, or possible insurance angles, no member of a family ever admits anything that spells suicide. That’s one thing they’ll do anything to keep under cover, to pretend didn’t happen. And in my experience, I’ve never known an exception: if they do seem to come out in the open, it’s to cover something up.”

“... Such as?”

“Whatever she really saw.”

“Spit it out, Keyes. What are you getting at?”

“Ed, Lynch said there was no insurance angle, but we know there is, from the investigators that attended this inquest. But we don’t know what those investigators, if they were to stay on the case, might turn up. The quickest way to get rid of them, if there’s a suicide clause in effect somewhere, would be to place sworn testimony on the record of a public inquest that establishes an eye-witness. That closes the case—for the cops, who are concerned only with violations of the law, and for these buzzards, that are concerned with everything, up and down the line, that affects a claim ... Ed, I confess this disturbs me.

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