John MacDonald - The Girl in the Plain Brown Wrapper

“Did she have her first operation here?”

“Yes. You see, Maurie was almost five months pregnant and she’d lost the first baby at six months. It was an absolutely stupid accident the first time. She drove down to pick up a cake she’d ordered for Tom’s birthday and it was in July two years ago, and she was driving back in a heavy rain and she started to put on the brakes and the cake started to slide off the seat, and she grabbed for it and when she did, she stomped harder on the brake and the car slid and she went up over the curb and hit a palm tree, and the steering wheel hit her in the stomach, and about three hours later, in the hospital, she aborted and the baby was alive, actually, a preemie, but less than two pounds, and she just didn’t make it. It was very sad and all, but Maurie told me on long distance there was no point in my coming down. She recovered very quickly. So I guess mother thought she’d better come over and keep Maurie from running into any palm trees so she would have her first grandchild. After she was here a week or so, she noticed some bleeding and had a checkup and they decided they’d better operate. She had Dr. William Dyckes, and he is fabulously good. When we knew she was going to be operated on, I came down to be with her and do what I could. Then, three days after she was operated on, Maurie went into some kind of kidney failure and had convulsions and lost her second baby, and hasn’t been right since. While they were both in there, I flew up and packed and closed my apartment and put stuff in storage and had the rest shipped down.”

“When was all that?”

“A year ago last month. Or a lifetime ago. Take your pick. Dr. Bill operated on Mother again last March. And then she died on the third of this month.” She frowned. “Only eleven days ago, Trav! But it seems much longer ago. And it was, of course. They kept her so doped, trying to build her up at the same time, for the operation. She was so tiny and shrunken. She looked seventy years old. You’d never have known her. And she was so... damned brave. I’m sorry. Excuse me. What the hell good is bravery in her situation?”

“Was there any chance?”

“Not the faintest. Bill explained it to Tom and me. I had to give permission. He said he thought it might help her to do another radical, take out more of the bowel, cut some nerve trunks to ease the pain. He wasn’t kidding me. I know he didn’t give her much chance of surviving it. But... he liked Mom. And she might have lasted for another two months, even more, before it killed her.”

I sat and made casual talk for a little while, watching her at work. She asked me to come to the party Tuesday evening. I said I might if I didn’t have to leave town before then. She said that if Tom wasn’t tied up, the three of them were going to drive down to Casey Key next Sunday, and she would look for that information about the Likely Lady .

I found the Boughmer house at 90 Rose Street without difficulty, but it was twenty after four when I walked up the porch steps and rang the bell. The blinds were closed against the afternoon heat. A broad doughy woman appeared out of the gloom and looked out at me through the screen. She wore a cotton print with a large floral design. She had brass-gold hair so rigidly coiffed it looked as if it had been forged from a single piece of metal.

“Well?”

“My name is McGee, Mrs. Boughmer. I called about talking to your daughter on that insurance matter?”

“You’re not very businesslike about arriving on time. You don’t look like a business person to me. Do you have any identification?”

I had found three of the old cards and moved them into the front of the wallet before I got out of my car. Engraved, fancy, chocolate on buff. D. Travis McGee. Field Director. Associated Adjusters, Inc. And a complex Miami address, two phone numbers, and a cable address.

She opened the door just far enough for me to slip the card through. She studied it, ran the ball of her thumb over the lettering, opened the door, and gave it back to me.

“In here, please, Mr. McGee. You might try the wing chair. It’s very comfortable. My late husband said it was the best chair he ever sat in. I will go see about my daughter.”

She went away. It was a small room with enough furniture and knickknacks in it for two large rooms. The broad blades of a ceiling fan turned slowly overhead, humming and whispering. I counted lamps. Nine. Four floor and five table. Tables. Seven. Two big, four small, one very small.

She came marching back in, straight as a drill sergeant. A younger woman followed her. I stood up and was introduced to Helen Boughmer. Thirty-three, maybe. Tall. Bad posture. Fussy, frilly, green silk blouse. Pale pleated skirt. Sallow skin. Very thin arms and legs fastened to a curious figure. It was broad but thin. Wide across the shoulders, wide across the pelvis. But with imperceptible breasts and a fanny that looked as if it had been flattened by a blow with a one-by-ten plank. Pointed nose. Mouse hair, so fine the fan kept stirring it. Glasses with gold metal frames, distorting lenses. Nervous mannerisms with hands and mouth. Self-effacing. She sat tentatively on the couch, facing me. Mom sat at the other end of the couch.

“Miss Boughmer, I’m sorry to bother you when you’re not feeling well. But this is a final report on some insurance carried by Doctor Stewart Sherman.”

“What policy? I knew all his policies. I was with him over five years. I made all the payments.”

“I don’t have those details, Miss Boughmer. We do adjustment work on contract for other companies. I was just asked to come up here and conduct interviews and write a report to my home office on whether or not, in my best opinion, the doctor’s death was suicide.”

“She was on her vacation,” Mom said.

“Well, I was spending it right here, wasn’t I?”

“And is there anything wrong with having a nice rest in your comfortable home, Helen?” She turned toward me. “It’s a good thing she didn’t spend her hard-earned money going around to a lot of tourist traps, because she certainly hasn’t worked a day since her precious doctor died. She doesn’t even seem to want to look for work. And I can tell you that I certainly believe in insurance, because we wouldn’t be living here right now the way we are if Robert hadn’t been thoughtful enough to protect his family in the event of his death.”

Helen said, “I just don’t know what insurance it could be. He cashed in the big policies because he wanted the money to invest with Mr. Pike. And the ones he kept, they’d be so old I guess they’d be past the suicide clause waiting period, wouldn’t they?”

I had to take a wild shot at it. “I’m not sure of this, Miss Boughmer, but I have the feeling that this could have been some sort of group policy.”

“Oh! I bet it’s Physicians’ General. That’s a term policy and he had no value to cash in, so he kept it. And I guess there could be a suicide clause for the life of the policy. Do you think so?”

“I would say it’s possible.” I smiled at her. “There has to be some policy where the problem exists, or I wouldn’t be here, would I?”

“I guess that’s right,” the receptionist-bookkeeper said.

“There was no note left by the deceased and no apparent reason for suicide. And the company is apparently not interested in taking refuge in a technicality if the claim should be paid to the heirs. Would you say it was suicide, Miss Boughmer?”

“Yes!”

Her tone had been so wan the sudden emphasis startled me.

“Why do you think so?”

“It’s just like I told the police. He was depressed, and he was moody, and I think he killed himself. They interviewed me and typed it out and I signed it.”