John MacDonald - The Girl in the Plain Brown Wrapper

All right, then say that Harry Simmons might probably admit a very rare exception. But Maurie Pearson Pike had opted for the pills, the razor, and the rope. Three methods.

I felt a prickling of the flesh on the backs of my hands. But it was a clumsy fit no matter how you looked at it. The suffering husband making a narrow save each time. Or the kid sister? Was there a third party who could get close enough to Maurie?

What about motive? The big ones are love and money. The estate was “substantial.” What are the terms? Check it out through soft-voiced D. Wintin Hardahee. And noble suffering Tommy had made the discreet pass at Freckle-Girl. So on top of that we have a dead family physician labeled suicide, and he had treated Maureen, and does that make any sense or any fit? Penny believed with all her sturdy heart that Dr. Stewart Sherman could not have killed himself.

The tap at my door had to be Penny bringing back the two fifty-dollar bills, and as I went toward the door I was uncomfortably aware of a hollow feeling in the belly that was a lustful anticipation that maybe she could be induced to stay awhile.

But there were two men there, and they both stared at me with that mild, bland, skeptical curiosity of the experienced lawman. It must be very like the first inspection of new specimens brought back to the base camp by museum expeditions. The specimen might be rare or damaged or poisonous. But you check it over and soon you are able to catalog it based on the experience of cataloging thousands of others over the years, and then it is a very ordinary job from then on, the one you are paid for.

The big, hard-boned, young one wore khakis, a white fishing cap with a peak, blue and white sneakers, and a white sport shirt with a pattern of red pelicans on it. It was worn outside the belt, doubtless to hide the miniature revolver that seems to be more and more of a fad with Florida local law. The smaller older one wore a pale tan suit, a white shirt with no tie. He had a balding head, liver spots, little dusty brown eyes, and a virulent halitosis that almost concealed the news that his young partner had been wearing the same shirt too long.

“Name McGee?”

“That’s right. What can I do for you?” I was stripped to my underwear shorts and barefoot.

“Well, for a starter, just turn around real slow with your arms out, then you can go stand by the window.” He flipped his wallet open and gave me the glimpse of the little gold badge. “I’m Stanger,” he said, and, indicating the younger one, “he’s Nudenbarger. City.”

“And for a starter,” I said, “search warrant?”

“Not unless I have to have one, McGee. But you make us go through the motions, everybody gets pissed off, and it’s a hot night, and it all adds up the same way anyway. So you — if you want to — you can like invite us to just poke around.”

“Poke around, Mr. Stanger. You too, Mr. Nudenbarger.”

He checked my wallet on the countertop while Nudenbarger checked the closet, the suitcase, the bathroom. Stanger wrote down some bits of information copied off credit cards into a blue pocket notebook, dime-sized. He couldn’t write without sticking his tongue out of the corner of his mouth. Credit cards hearten them. The confetti of the power structure.

“Plenty cash, Mr. McGee.”

Cash and credit had earned me the “mister.” I moved over and sat on the bed without permission. “Seven hundred and something. Let me see... and thirty-eight. It’s sort of a bad habit I’m trying to break, Mr. Stanger. It’s stupid to carry cash. Probably the result of some kind of insecurity in my childhood. It’s my blue blanket.”

He looked at me impassively. “I guess that’s pretty funny.”

“Funny peculiar?”

“No. Being funny like jokes. Being witty with stupid cops.”

“No. The thing about the blue blanket—”

“I keep track of Beethoven’s birthday, and the dog flies a DeHavilland Moth.”

“What’s that?” Nudenbarger asked. “What’s that?”

“Forget it, Lew,” Stanger said in a weary voice.

“You always say that,” Nudenbarger said, accusingly indignant.

It is like a marriage, of course. They are teamed up and they work on each other’s nerves, and some of the gutsy ones who have gone into the dark warehouse have been shot in the back by the partner/wife who just couldn’t stand any more.

Stanger perched a tired buttock on the countertop, other leg braced with knee locked, licked his thumb, and leafed back through some pages in the blue notebook.

“Done any time at all, Mr. McGee?”

“No.”

“Arrests?”

“Here and there. No charges.”

“Suspicion of what?”

“Faked-up things. Impersonation, conspiracy, extortion. Somebody gets a great idea, but the first little investigation and it all falls down.”

“Often?”

“What’s often? Five times in a lifetime? About that.”

“And you wouldn’t mention it except if I checked it would show up someplace.”

“If you say so.”

“You have been here and there, McGee, because for me there is something missing. Right. What do you storm troopers want? What makes you think you can come in here, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. But you don’t object at all.”

“Would it work with you, Stanger?”

“Not lately. So okay. Would you say you left about noon and got back a little after one today?”

“Close enough.”

“And sacked out?”

“Slept like death until maybe eight o’clock.”

“When you make a will, Mr. McGee, leave a little something to Mrs. Imber.”

“Who is she?”

“Sort of the housekeeper. Checking on the job the maids do. Opened your door with her passkey at four o’clock, give or take ten minutes. You were snoring on the bed.”

“Which sounds as if it was the right place to be.”

“A nice place to be. Let me read you a little note. I copied this off the original, which is at the lab. It goes like this:... By the way, it was sealed in an envelope and on the outside it said Mr. T. McGee, One-O-nine. So we check some places and find a place with a One-O-nine with a McGee in it. Which is here, and you. It says: ‘Dear Honey, What do I say about the wages of sin? Anyway, it was one of his lousy ideas and overlooked, so here it is back. Woke up and couldn’t get back to sleep and went into the purse for a cigarette and found this. Reason I couldn’t get back to sleep? Well, hell. Reasons. Plural. Memories of you and me... getting me a little too worked up for sleepy-bye. And something maybe we should talk over. It’s about something SS said about memory and digital skills. Have to go do a trick as a Special at eight, filling in for a friend. I’ll drop this off on the way. No man in his right mind would pick a girl up in the hospital lot at four fifteen on Sunday morning, would he? Would he? Would he?’ ”

Stanger read badly. He said, “It’s signed with an initial. P. Nobody you ever heard of?”

“Penny Woertz.”

“The hundred bucks was the wages of sin, McGee?”

“Just a not very funny joke. Private and personal.”

Nudenbarger stood looking me over, a butcher selecting a side of beef. “Get chopped up in the service?”

“Some of it.”

Nudenbarger’s smirk, locker-room variety, didn’t charm me. “How was she, McGee? Pretty good piece of ass?”

“Shut up, Lew,” Stanger said with weary patience. “How long did you know Miss Woertz, McGee?”

“Since we met in the bar last night. You can ask the man who was working the bar. His name is Jake.”

“The room maid said you must have had a woman in here last night. So you confirm that it was the nurse. Then you took her back to her apartment at about noon. Did you go in with her?”