The Girl in the Plain Brown Wrapper

by John D. MacDonald

  “I guess I’ve had you on my mind, Janice.”

  She stared at me, and her frown made two vertical clefts between her dark brows, over the generous nose. She shook her head slowly. “Uh-uh, my friend. If you’re thinking what I think you’re thinking. Help the embittered lady get her own back? Eye for an eye, and all that? What’s the next part of the gambit? Healthy young woman deprived of a sex life, et cetera, et cetera? No, my dear. Not even to keep Meg happy by confirming her suspicions.”

  “Now that you bring it up, the idea has some merit, I guess. I’ve had you on my mind for a different reason.”

  “Such as?”

  “Suppose I named your boyfriend by name. The dear, kind, tender, sensitive, wonderful and so on.”

  “You can’t, of course. What are you getting at?”

  “But if I did, would you feel you had to go to him and tell him that somebody knows?”

  “On a hypothetical basis? Let me see. If you did name him, what would be your point, really, in wanting to be certain? What would you be after?”

  “A clue to what kind of man he is.”

  “He is a marvelous man!”

  “Does everybody think so?”

  “Of course not! Don’t be so dense! Any man who has strength and drive and opinions of his own will make enemies.”

  “Who’ll bad-mouth him.”

  “Of course.”

  “Okay, his name is … Tompestuous K. Fliggle, Banker.”

  “Travis, you are an idiot.”

  “These are idiotic times we live in, my dear.”

  And the little inadvertent muscles around her eyes had clued me when I hit the first syllable of the invented name, which was as far as I cared to go.

  At a few minutes past noon I read the nameplate on the mailbox at 60 Ridge Lane. Miss Hulda Wennersehn. The name of the real estate firm that managed the garden apartments was on a small sign at the corner. From the first drugstore phone I came to, I called the real estate offices and was switched to a Miss Forrestal. I told her I was with the credit bureau and would appreciate some information on Hulda Wennersehn. She pulled the card and said that Miss Wennersehn, age fifty-one, had been in number sixty for four years and had never been in arrears. I asked if Miss Wennersehn was employed by an insurance company and she said, “Oh, no, unless she changed jobs and didn’t inform us. Of course, she’d have no reason to inform us, actually. But we have her as working for Kinder, Noyes, and Strauss. That’s a brokerage firm. She works as a cashier.” So thank you, my dear.

  So I phoned the brokerage house and the switchboard girl told me that, my goodness, it had been at least two years since Miss Wennersehn had worked there. She was working for a real estate company. She gave me the phone number. On a hunch I asked her if a Mr. Tom Pike had ever been with the firm, and she said that he had, but that had been some time ago. The number she gave me turned out to be Development Unlimited.

  “Miss Wennersehn? I’ll transfer you to … oh, excuse me, sir. She is still up at our Jacksonville office. Shall I see if I can find out when she’ll be returning?”

  I thanked her and told her not to bother.

  I went back to the motel to see if there were any messages. Stanger was waiting for me.

  Sixteen

  Something had changed Stanger, tautened him, given him nervous mannerisms I had not noticed before. We went to 109. He moved restlessly about. I phoned for sandwiches and coffee.

  When I asked him what was wrong, he told me to let him think. He paused at the big window and stood with his hands locked behind him, teetering from heel to toe, looking out at people playing in the pool.

  “I could maybe go with one of those security outfits,” he said. “Gate guard. Watchman work.”

  “You get busted?”

  “Not yet. But maybe that’s what they’ll want to do.”

  “Why?”

  “That Mrs. Boughmer was off on some kind of garden club tour. I finally got the daughter to let me in. Went into my act. Want to warn you you’re in serious trouble. Withholding information about a capital crime. Maybe I can help you if you level with me now. And so on and so on. Until she split open.”

  “What was her problem?”

  He turned and walked over and sat heavily in the armchair. “She was bellering and squeaking and sobbing. Spraying spit. Words all jammed together she was trying to say them so fast. Grabbing at my hands. Begging. Confessing. Jesus!”

  “Confessing what?”

  “That poor dim ugly girl was in love with Doc Sherman. Not so much romance and poetry. Passion. Hot pants. You saw her. Any man ever going to lay a hand on her? So there was something she was doing, God only knows what. Last to leave. Lock the doors. Leave the office lights on. Go into the dark treatment room. Do something in there. She wouldn’t say what. Something, according to her, that was nasty and evil. Went on for years, I guess. Some kind of release. No idea what Broon was after or how he got in. She was working on the files after Sherman had died, a few days later. She was in the treatment room and the lights suddenly went on and Broon is in the doorway watching her. Told her to put her clothes back on and he’d talk to her in the office. Apparently, McGee, he convinced that poor sick sad homely woman that there was some law, crime against nature, jail her as a degenerate or some damned thing. Told her that if she ever tried to tell anybody Sherman didn’t kill himself, he’d have her picked up and taken in right away. He took some kind of ‘evidence’ away with him. How the hell was I supposed to know she was so close to the edge? All of a sudden she went rigid as a board, bit right through her lip, started whooping and snapping around, eyes out of sight. Followed the ambulance in. Some kind of breakdown. Left a neighbor woman on the lookout for Mrs. Boughmer. Probably Dave Broon slipped the lock on the rear door that night and came easing in.”

  “That won’t be anything to bust you for, Al.”

  “It isn’t that. It’s what comes next. Maybe.”

  “Which is?”

  “Dave Broon. I’ve come right up to it with him. Too many years, too many things. No way to nail him according to the rules I’m supposed to follow. We’re supposed to be on the same ball club. He gives the whole thing a bad smell. Maybe there’s a time when you don’t go by the book. Look, I’ve got to have somebody with me. The things I’m thinking scare me. I’ve got to have somebody stop me if I can’t stop myself.”

  “Maybe you’d better think it over.”

  “Meaning you don’t want any part of it.”

  “If you want me with you, okay. But just for the hell of it, before we see him, can you get a decent check on where he was the night Sherman died, and where he was the afternoon Penny Woertz died?”

  “I don’t know about last Saturday, but I remember he was up in Birmingham to bring a prisoner back when Sherman died. Anyway, let me see where that fancy little scut might be.”

  He moved to the bed and used the bedside phone. He would mumble greetings, ask about Broon, listen, hang up, dial another number. He made at least eight calls. He got up and said, “Guess I’ll have some time to think it over. He’s been here and there, but nobody’s got a fix on him in the past hour or so. Might be hanging around the courthouse. He’s got cronies over there who feed him little bits of information, probably for cash on the line. Or he could be at city hall for the same reason. Or he could be holed up in that so-called penthouse with a new playmate. Hasn’t had one around for a while, so he’s due.”

  He left, saying he would get in touch and pick me up so I could go with him to talk to Dave Broon. After he had gone, I put the lunch tray outside the door so no one would have any reason to come in after it. And before I left, I used one of the oldest and simplest tricks to warn me if anyone came into the room by way of the door while I was gone. I wadded up a sheet of the motel stationery and, as I left, I leaned over and reached back through the opening and placed it on the rug, close to the door, a precise placement because I could measure it by the length of my forearm, from the crook of elbo
w to the thumb and finger in which I held it. The door opened inward. Anyone entering would brush it away with the door. Even if they had the wit to try to replace it, they could never put it in the same identifiable position as before. When a door opens outward, it is easiest to close it against a bit of matchstick or toothpick inserted at some precise spot and broken off so that it is barely visible from outside the door. But a careful workman can defeat this protection, or the hair and chewing gum device, or the carbon-paper gimmick.

  The day blackened, the sky cracked open, and the rain came down, storm gusts whipping the spray of the rebound and the mist of the hot streets, tearing brown fronds off the cabbage palms, shredding the broadleaf plantings, swinging signs and traffic lights. Same kind of storm wind that had made the Likely Lady rock her weight against the anchor lines, creaking and grunting. It had been cozy below.

  I tried Hardahee. She said he had left for the day, and I could not tell if she was lying. I found Rick Holton’s law office. The girl took my name and disappeared. She came back and led me down a paneled corridor. He had a big desk with a window wall behind it that looked out onto a little enclosed court paved with Japanese river stones and with some stunted trees in big white pots. Rain ran down the window wall. He had a lot of framed scrolls on the persimmon paneling of his walls, and framed photographs of politicians, warmly inscribed.

  He tried the big confident junior chamber smile, but it had sagged into nothing before the girl had closed the office door.

  “Sit down, McGee. Told Sally I didn’t want to see anybody. Supposed to be getting through all this damned desk work. Jesus! I read things three times and don’t know what I’ve read. Know where they’re getting with the investigation? No place. I think it was some crazy. Hell, Penny would have opened the door to anybody. They panicked and ran. One of those lousy meaningless things. They’ll pick him up for something else someday, and he’ll start talking and hand them this one.”

  “It might open up. Stanger might come across something.”

  “He’s good.”

  “Better than your friend Dave Broon?”

  He shrugged. “Dave is handy for odd jobs.”

  “Can I get your opinion on a few things, Holton? Not legal opinion. Personal.”

  “For what it’s worth, which isn’t much lately. Everything seems to be going sour. You know, the deal with Penny was going sour. We were about ready to close the books. So why do I miss her so damned much?”

  “She was pretty special.”

  “So Janice was very special. Past tense. I blew the whole bit. For a roll in the hay with Penny Woertz. Nowhere near as good-looking a girl as Janice. What was I trying to prove? With Janice you don’t just make a sincere apology and go on from there. Done is done. Total loyalty, given and expected. I’ve lost her. Funny thing, driving back from Vero Beach, when I had no idea in the world Penny was already dead, I tried to tell Jan that it was something that had just sort of happened. I said it was over. I wasn’t sure it was over, but I had the feeling that if I told Jan it was, then I’d have to make sure I kept on feeling just the way I felt when she wouldn’t leave your room Friday night when I did. That was before we picked up the kids at Citrusdale. She let me talk. I thought she was really thinking it over, giving me a chance. I reached over and put my hand on her arm. You know, she actually shuddered? And she said in a polite voice to please not touch her, it made her stomach turn over. That was the end of it, right there.”

  “When you were waiting for me Sunday night, did you have any idea of shooting me, Holton?”

  He tilted his chair back and looked up at the soundproofed ceiling, eyes narrowed. “That was pretty dim. Jesus, I don’t know. I’d read a stat of that note she wrote you. It made it pretty clear about you two. I was aware of the gun. I had the feeling that my whole life was so messed up nothing mattered too much. And you’d hit me harder than anybody ever hit me in my life. I’m still sore from it. Four days and I still hurt when I take a deep breath. I’ve got a lousy temper. Maybe, McGee. All things considered, I just might have. Scares me to think of it. Without Janice and without Penny, things aren’t all that bad. I’ve got a lot of friends. I do a good job for my clients. I made a good record as an assistant state attorney and I’ve got a good chance of becoming county attorney next year, and that’s worth a minimum forty thousand, plus other business it brings in. They say money won’t buy happiness, but you can sure rent yourself some. I’m grateful to you for suckering me. And thanks for taking me home. Where’s the gun anyway?”

  “I turned it over to Stanger and he gave it back to me.”

  He was puzzled. “Why’d he do that?”

  “It’s just sort of a temporary loan, just a little delay in officially turning it over to him.”

  “When you give it back to him, tell him to hang on to it. I don’t think I ought to have one around. Not for a while. Maybe not ever. But why does Al Stanger think you need a gun?”

  “Just a whim, maybe.”

  “You mean you’d rather not say? Okay. Yesterday morning I checked out what you said about yourself. I phoned Tom Pike and he said you were an old friend of Mrs. Trescott and her daughters.”

  “If you could check that easily, why didn’t you check before you and Penny pulled that stupid deal, that grade C melodrama?”

  He blushed. “So now it seems wild and stupid. We sort of talked each other into it. If it had worked—and you have to admit it came close—then I would have maybe found out from whatever papers you were carrying on your person, the missing piece. We’d narrowed it down to one theory that looked better and better. The tall man could have been in some kind of drug traffic.”

  “Oh, come on!”

  “Wait a minute now! I held back a little on you when we talked in your room. Penny followed my lead. The man seen leaving Sherman’s office was carrying a case of some kind, light-colored and heavy. No controlled drugs were missing, according to the office records. But there was no control on the stuff he ordered for his experimentations. He did some animal experimentations along with the other stuff. He could have been ordering experimental compounds, couldn’t he?”

  “Aren’t you reaching?”

  “I talked to Helen Boughmer the day after he died. She was convinced that a lot of stuff might be missing from the room in back, and she was going to check the file of special orders against the inventory of what was left. She believed he’d been killed. And two days later, she’d changed completely. She said she had changed her mind. She said she believed he’d killed himself. She said she had checked the special orders and nothing was missing. I asked her to produce the file. She claimed she couldn’t find it. And she never did find it. Now somebody, dammit, had to get to her. If Sherman had killed himself, why would anybody take the time and trouble to shut her mouth. She was a changed woman. She acted terrified.”

  “Then, why would I come back here, if I was the one who killed Doctor Sherman? What would there be here for me?”

  “Now you can say I’m reaching. Why would Tom Pike pay you twenty thousand in cash? It was one of those crazy breaks you get sometimes that one of my partners here saw him giving the money to a man who matches your description. Let’s say Sherman stepped out of line when Maureen Pike was so critically ill at the time of her miscarriage, and gave her something not authorized for use on patients. Suppose he did this with Tom’s knowledge and consent, and whatever it was, the side effect was some kind of brain damage? Hell, it kind of dwindles off because it doesn’t seem as if it would give anybody enough leverage to pry money out of Tom Pike. But you’d seen Tom, and even if we didn’t find a thing except a heavy piece of money on you, that would mean some kind of confirmation.”

  “Personal opinion again, please. Do you think Dr. Sherman killed his wife?”

  “Ben Gaffner and I—he’s the state attorney—went up one side of that and down the other. Going after him with a circumstantial case just didn’t add up. We could show motive and opportunity, but there was absol
utely no way to prove the cause of death. Do I think he did? Yes. So does Ben. The specialists we talked to said it was highly unlikely there could have been such a sudden deterioration in her condition that she could go into deep coma after the amount of insulin she had apparently taken. But ‘highly unlikely’ isn’t enough to go to court with. So we closed out the investigation finally.”

  “Who was handling it?”

  “The death occurred in county jurisdiction. Dave Broon was handling it, under joint direction of my office and the sheriff. If Dave could have come up with something that strengthened the case, it would still have been a pretty unpopular indictment.”

  “Now, to get back to Sherman’s death, do you have the feeling that Penny had any kind of lead at all that she hadn’t told you about yet?”

  He looked startled and then grim. “I see where that one is aimed. I don’t really … wait a minute. Let me think.” He leaned back and ground at his eyes with the heels of his hands. “I don’t know if this is anything. It would have been … a week ago. Last Tuesday. She was working an eleven-to-six-in-the-morning shift, a postoperative case, and that was the last time she was on that one. I pulled out of here early. About quarter to four and went over to see her. She’d just gotten up. She had dreamed about Dr. Sherman. She was telling me about it. I wasn’t paying much attention. She stopped all of a sudden and she had a funny expression. I asked her what the trouble was and she said she’d just thought of something, that the dream had reminded her of something. She wouldn’t tell me. She said she had to ask somebody a question first, and maybe it was nothing at all, but maybe it meant something. Very mysterious about it.”

  “Can you remember anything about the dream?”

  “Not much. Nutty stuff. Something about him opening a door in his forehead and making her look in and count the times a little orange light in there was blinking.”

  “But you don’t know if she asked anyone that question?”

  “She never brought it up again.”