I nodded.
“What makes the police think suicide?”
I said, “The door was locked from the inside. The bodies were lying on the floor. There was no sign of a struggle. It was the guy’s own gun. It was held loosely in his hand when the police found the bodies.”
Bertha frowned, and said, “You’d have a hell of a time selling the insurance company eighty thousand dollars’ worth of theory when the facts are like that.”
I nodded.
“Door locked from the inside?” Bertha said.
“That’s right. The woman who owned the place had to punch the key out of the door on the inside before she could open the door with her pass-key. I think there was a window open.”
Bertha frowned. Slowly a look of disappointment came over her face. She said, “You can’t make it stick, Donald, no matter how you try. The door was locked from the inside and it was his gun. That sews the case up.”
“But there were three shots.”
“Well, he missed one.”