“About twenty-three years ago she was a throat and ear specialist in San Francisco. Crosby met her when she treated Janet for a minor complaint. He married her. She kept her practice, over-worked, had a nervous breakdown and had to quit. Crosby and she didn’t hit it off. He caught her fooling with Salzer. He divorced her. When he moved to Orchid City, she moved too, to be near Maureen. Like it?”
“Well, it helps,” I said. We were now on the Los Angeles and San Francisco Highway, and I had my foot hard down on the gas pedal. “It explains quite a lot of things, but not everything. It accounts for why she took a hand in the game. Naturally she’d be anxious her daughter should keep all that money. But for the love of Mike! Imagine going to the lengths she’s gone to. It’s my bet she’s crazy.”
“Probably is,” Kerman said complacently. “They were cagey about her at the Medical Association. Said she had a nervous breakdown and wouldn’t enlarge on it. She chucked a dummy right in the middle of an operation. One nurse I talked to said if it hadn’t been for the anesthetist she would have cut the patient’s throat: as bad as that.”
“Salzer any money?”
“Not a bean.”
“I wonder who promoted the sanatorium: probably Crosby. She’s not going to get away with Nurse Gurney’s death. When the police find the body I’m going to tip Mifflin.”
“They may never find her,” Kerman said. He had a very low opinion of the Orchid City police.
“I’ll help them, after I’ve seen Maureen.”
We drove for the next ten minutes in silence while I did some heavy thinking.
Then Kerman said, “Aren’t we wasting time going to see old man Freedlander? Couldn’t we have telephoned?”