Once a Widow by Lee Roberts Read Free Book Online

the wrench in his jacket pocket. He liked his clothes to fit neatly. He reached twin glass doors and peered through them. Inside the entrance were three marble steps leading up to a dimly lit corridor. He saw a woman working at a desk in a small glass-enclosed office.
    Richard paused, made his plan, remembering what he’d learned from Alex Kamin. Then he entered the hospital.

 
CHAPTER FIVE
     
    In the early morning of that Sunday in July it was fairly clear, but the sun, behind shreds of racing clouds, held an odd saffron look and the sky was lead-colored over the Canadian horizon. Shortly before noon the sun disappeared and the clouds thickened and darkened and swept in from the northeast. The lake began to roll and presently whitecaps sprang up. Then came the wind and with it was rain.
    Mortimer Watson, general agent for the Great Northern Casualty Company, said disgustedly, “Well, that ruins our fishing,” and began to reel in his line. “The fish’ll be nosing the bottom until this blows over.”
    “You’re right, Mort,” said a slender elderly man with thick brown hair touched with gray. “We may as well go back to the clubhouse and play some poker.” His name was Lewis Sprang and he was a lawyer.
    “Hah!” Watson jeered. “Itching to get your money back, huh?”
    The elderly man, also reeling in his line, smiled thinly around a black cigar clenched between his teeth. “That’s right, Mort. I figure you’re in to me for forty-seven dollars.”
    “I’m available,” Watson said, grinning, and called to a third man standing in the stern of the small cruiser. “Hey, George, ship your tackle. We’re heading back for the basin.”
    The man in the stern, who was much younger than the other two, in his early twenties, gazed at the heaving water and darkening sky and nodded. “I’ll get the anchor,” he called back. He was a well built young man, perhaps a trifle too heavy, with thick blond hair, blowing now in the wind, and calm blue eyes. Like the two older men he wore rubber-soled canvas shoes, slacks and a short-sleeved shirt. His name was George Yundt and he was a teller at the Harbor City State Bank. He reeled in, placed his rod on the deck, and moved forward to the anchor chain. The boat was pitching quite badly now.
    Mortimer Watson, who owned the boat, entered the tiny cabin and started the motor. Lewis Sprang followed him into the cabin, stooping as he entered. He was seventy-one years old, tall and spare, with a thin tanned face and kindly brown eyes behind rimless glasses. Watson was younger, fifty-four, a thick, short man, partially bald.
    George Yundt shipped the anchor and shouted over the wind, “All clear! Take her away!” He was enjoying himself, even though the storm had interrupted their fishing. It was only by chance that he was a member of the party. He had been strolling on the pier of the Harbor City yacht basin, restless and bored on a Sunday morning, when Watson and Sprang had been preparing to shove off. They had invited him to come along and he had accepted, faintly proud of the opportunity to be the guest of two of Harbor City’s most prominent citizens. Besides, he had nothing better to do. He hated Sundays, usually.
    Now he moved along the deck and entered the cabin. Watson swung the wheel and the boat began to move in a slow churning circle, rising and falling with the pitch of the waves. Watson shouted above the roar of the motor, “There’s plenty of beer and sandwiches.” George Yundt, wishing to be helpful, lifted the lid of an ice chest, brought out three bottles of beer, snapped off the caps and passed them around. Watson drank from his while holding the wheel with one hand. Lewis Sprang sat on a narrow padded bench against one wall of the cabin. George Yundt stood beside Watson and gazed through the glass at the prow as it pitched against wild water and dark sky. The waves foamed angrily and it seemed that they were growing much larger, very quickly. The boat