The car had, in fact, been Dr. Payne’s father’s car. He had made it available to his daughter at a very good price because, he said, the trade-in allowance on his new car had been grossly inadequate. That was not the whole truth. While Brewster Payne had been quietly incensed at the trade-in price offered for a two-year-old car with less that 15,000 miles on the odometer and in showroom condition, the real reason was that the skillful chauffeuring of an automobile was not among his daughter’s many skills and accomplishments.
“She needs something substantial, like the Buick, something that will survive a crash,” he confided to his wife. “If I could, I’d get her a tank or an armored car. When Amy gets behind the wheel, she reminds me of that comic-strip character with the black cloud of inevitable disaster floating over his head.”
It was not that she was reckless, or had a heavy foot on the accelerator, but rather that she simply didn’t seem to care. Her father had decided that this was because Amy had-always had had-things on her mind far more important than the possibility of a dented fender, hers or someone else’s.
In the third grade when Amy had been sent to see a psychiatrist for her behavior in class (when she wasn’t causing all sorts of trouble, she was in the habit of taking a nap) the psychiatrist quickly determined the cause. She was, according to the three different tests to which he subjected her, a genius. She was bored with the third grade.
At ten, she was admitted to a high school for the intellectually gifted operated by the University of Pennsylvania, and matriculated at the University of Pennsylvania at the age of thirteen, because of her extraordinary mathematical ability.
“Theoretical mathematics, of course,” her father joked to intimate friends. “Double Doctor Payne is absolutely unable to balance a checkbook.”
That was a reference to her two doctoral degrees, the first a Ph. D. earned at twenty with a dissertation on probability, the second an M.D. earned at twenty-three after she had gone through what her father thought of as a dangerous dalliance with a handsome Jesuit priest nearly twice her age. She emerged from this (so far as he knew platonic) relationship with a need to serve God by serving mankind. Her original intention was to become a surgeon, specializing in trauma injuries, but during her internship at the University of Pennsylvania Hospital, she decided to become a psychiatrist. She trained at the Menninger Clinic, then returned to Philadelphia, where she had a private practice and taught at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.
She was now twenty-nine and had never married, although a steady stream of young men had passed through her life. Her father privately thought she scared them off with her brainpower. He could think of no other reason she was still single. She was attractive, he thought, and charming, and had a sense of humor much like his own.
Amelia Payne, Ph. D., M.D., stopped the Buick in front of the Detweiler mansion, effectively denying the use of the drive to anyone else who wished to use it, and got out. She was wearing a pleated tweed skirt and a sweater, and looked like a typical Main Line Young Matron.
The EMT firemen standing near the blanket-covered body were therefore surprised when she knelt beside the stretcher and started to remove the blanket.
“Hey, lady!”
“I’m Dr. Payne,” Amy said, and examined the body very quickly. Then she pulled the blanket back in place and stood up.
“Let’s get this into the house,” she said. “Out of sight.”
“We’re waiting for the M.E.”
“And while we’re waiting, we’re going to move the body into the house,” Dr. Payne said. “That wasn’t a suggestion.”
The EMT firemen picked up the stretcher and followed her into the house.
She crossed the foyer and opened the door to the sitting room and saw her father and H. Richard Detweiler talking softly.
“Are you all right, Uncle Dick?” she asked.
“Ginger-peachy, honey,” Detweiler replied.
“Grace is upstairs, Amy,” her father said.
“I’ll look in on her,” Amy said, and pulled the door closed. She turned to the firemen. “Over there,” she said. “In the dining room.”
She crossed the foyer, opened the door to the dining room, and waited inside until the firemen had carried the stretcher inside. Then she issued other orders:
“One of you stay here, the other wait outside for the M.E. When he gets here, send for me. I’ll be upstairs with Mrs. Detweiler, the mother.”
“Yes, Ma’am,” the larger of the two EMTs-whose body weight was approximately twice that of Amy’s-said docilely.
Amy went quickly up the stairs to the second floor.
A black Ford Falcon with the seal of the City of Philadelphia and those words in small white letters on its doors passed through the gates of the Detweiler estate and drove to the door of the mansion.
Bernard C. Potter, a middle-aged, balding black man, tie-less, wearing a sports coat and carrying a 35mm camera and a small black bag, got out and walked toward the door. Bernie Potter was an investigator for the Office of the Medical Examiner, City of Philadelphia.
This job, Potter thought, judging from the number of police cars-and especially the Fire Department rescue vehicle that normally would have been long gone from the scene-parked in front of the house, is going to be a little unusual.
And then Captain O’Connor, who Bernie Potter knew was Commanding Officer of Northwest Detectives, came out the door. This was another indication that something special was going on. Captains of Detectives did not normally go out on routine Five Two Nine Two jobs.
“What do you say, Bernie?”
“What have we got?” Bernie asked as they shook hands.
“Looks like a simple OD, Bernie. Caucasian female, early twenties, whose father happens to own Nesfoods.”
“Nice house,” Bernie said. “I didn’t think these people were on public assistance. Where the body?”
“In the dining room.”
“What are you guys still doing here?” Bernie asked the Fire Department EMT on the patio. It was simple curiosity, not a reprimand.
The EMT looked uncomfortable.
“Like I told you,” Captain O’Connor answered for him, “the father owns Nesfoods International.” And then he looked down the drive at a new Ford coming up. “And here comes, I think, Chief Coughlin.”
“Equal justice under the law, right?” Bernie asked.
“There’s a doctor, a lady doctor, in there,” the EMT said, “said she wanted to be called when you came.”
“What does she want?” Bernie asked.
The EMT shrugged.
Chief Coughlin got out of his car and walked up.
“Good morning, Chief,” Tom O’Connor said.
Coughlin shook his hand and then Bernie Potter’s.
“Long time no see, Bernie,” he said. “You pronounce yet?”
“Haven’t seen the body.”
“The quicker we can get this over, the better. You call for a wagon, Tom?”
“I didn’t. I don’t like to get in the way of my people.”
“Check and see. If he hasn’t called for one, get one here.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Where’s the body?”
“In the dining room,” the EMT said.
“I heard it was on the patio here.”
“The lady doctor made us move it,” the EMT said.
“Let’s go have a look at it,” Coughlin said. “I know where the dining room is. Tom, you make sure about the
