John MacDonald - The Girl in the Plain Brown Wrapper

“I’ve interviewed Mr. Richard Holton and, prior to the tragic murder of Miss Woertz last Saturday, I talked to her about it too. They were both most vehement in saying that it could not possibly have been suicide.”

“Like you said at first,” her mother said, “crying and raving and ranting around here, making a fuss like you didn’t make when your poor father died. You told me fifty times your wonderful doctor couldn’t have ever killed himself. You were going to find out what happened to him if it took the rest of your life, remember? And not two days later you decided all of a sudden that he had killed himself.”

She sat with her hands clasped on her lap, fingers interlaced and rigid, head downcast. She looked like a child praying in Sunday school.

“After I thought it over I changed my mind,” she said, and I found myself leaning forward to hear her.

“But Miss Woertz didn’t change her mind.”

“That’s got nothing to do with me.”

“Is it your impression that Miss Woertz was a stable, rational human being, Miss Boughmer?”

She looked up swiftly and down again. “She was a very sweet person. I’m sorry she’s dead.”

“Hah!” said Mom. “To this child everybody is a very sweet person. She’s easily led. She’ll believe anybody. Anybody with half an eye could see that Penny Woertz was a cheap, obvious, little thing. Why, she couldn’t have cared one way or another whether Dr. Sherman killed himself or was murdered.”

“Mom!”

“Hush up, Helen. All the little Woertz person wanted to do was dramatize. One of the ladies in my garden club, a very reliable lady, and she’s never had to wear glasses a day in her life, saw that nurse and Mr. Holton, a married man, embracing and kissing each other in a parked car in the lot at the hospital just over three weeks ago, practically under one of the streetlights in the parking lot. Do you call that rational and stable, Mr. McGee? I call it sinful and wicked and cheap.”

“Mom, please!”

“Did she ever try to take any of that work off your shoulders? Did she? Not once did she ever—”

“But that wasn’t her job ! I did my job and she did hers.”

“I bet she did. I bet she did more than her job. I bet there was more going on between her and your marvelous doctor than you could ever see, the way you think she was so sweet and wonderful.”

The girl stood up quickly and wavered for a moment, dizzy. “I don’t feel so good. I’m sorry. I don’t want to talk about it any more.”

“Then, you go to bed, dear. Mr. McGee didn’t mean to tire you. I’ll be up in a little while to see if there’s anything you need.”

She stopped in the doorway and looked toward me, not quite at me. “Nobody can ever make me say anything else about the doctor. I think he killed himself because he was moody and depressed.”

She disappeared. “I’m sorry,” Mrs. Boughmer said. “Helen just isn’t herself these days. She’s been a changed girl ever since that doctor died. She worshipped the man, God knows why. I thought he was a little on the foolish side. He could have had a marvelous practice if he’d had any energy or ambition. He was all right until his wife died three years ago. Then he sort of slacked off. She wouldn’t have put up with all those stupid projects of his. Research, he called it. Why, he wasn’t even a specialist. And I think the drug companies are doing all the research anybody needs.”

“Your daughter hasn’t looked for work since?”

“Not after she got through straightening out all the files for Dr. Wayne to pick up and trying to collect the final bills. But there doesn’t seem to be much point in people paying doctor bills to a dead doctor, does there? No, she just seems to feel weak. She doesn’t seem to have the will or the energy to go out and find another job. She’s a good hard worker too. And she was a very good student in school. But she’s always been a quiet girl. She always liked being by herself. Thank the Lord we have enough to live on. I have to scrimp and cut corners with her not working, but we get by.”

“She seemed certain that the doctor hadn’t killed himself?”

“Positive. She was like a maniac. I hardly knew my own daughter. Her eyes were wild. But I think it was the second day she was at the office, cleaning things up, she just came home late and went to bed and didn’t want anything to eat. She hardly said a word for days. She lost a lot of weight. Well, maybe she’ll start to perk up soon.”

“I hope so.”

Nine thirty Monday evening. Stanger was suddenly standing at my elbow at the bar at the motel and suggested it might be better if we talked in my room. I gulped the final third of my drink and walked around with him. The air was very close and muggy. He said a storm would help, and we might get one in the night.

Once we were in the room, I remembered something I kept forgetting to ask him. “Holton has some buddy on the force who opens motel doors for him and such like. Who is that?”

“Not on the city force. That’s Dave Broon. Special investigator for the Sheriff’s Department. Slippery little son of a bitch for sure. The sheriff, Amos Turk, didn’t want to take him on in the first place. That was about seven years back. But there was political pressure on Amos. Dave Broon has a lot of things going for him all the time. You want a nice little favor done, like maybe some chick starts putting the pressure on you threatening to go to your wife, Dave is your boy. He’ll check her out, scare her to death, and put the roust on her, but then when Dave wants something out of you, he’s got the names, dates, and photostats of the motel register, so you do him a favor. He’s built up a lot of political clout around this part of the state. Lot of the lawyers use him on special little jobs because he’s careful and he keeps his mouth shut.”

“Next question. Is D. Wintin Hardahee his own man?”

“God, you do get around some, McGee. Far as I know, he is. Soft voice, but don’t mess with him. Hard-nosed and honest. Nobody tells him what to do.”

“And what about Holton and the note?”

“Don’t I get to ask any questions?”

“And you’ll get answers. What about Holton?”

“That boy was so bad hung this morning he couldn’t move his eyeballs. Had to turn his whole head. Kept sweating a lot. Cut his face all up shaving it. What happened was they got in from Vero Beach Saturday night after ten. Car radio was busted. He had a beer and went right to bed and he said he hadn’t had much sleep Friday night. Drove around for a long time after he left here. Parked by the Woertz apartment for a while, but she didn’t come home. Got in at three, he thinks. So he slept heavy Saturday night. Got up about ten thirty Sunday morning. His wife was already up. He was sitting on the edge of the bed when the phone rang. Picked it up and said hello. No answer for a moment and he thought it was the same kind of trouble they’ve been having with the line. Ring once and no more. Then he said somebody whispered to him. He didn’t get it at first. They repeated it and hung up. Couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman. It made no sense to him. The whisper said, ‘The police found a note she left for her new lover.’ Some damfool prank, he thought. Then he saw the front page of the paper, and without breakfast or a word to anybody he came downtown and conned Foster into letting him see the note. Hunted around for you. Got ugly drunk. Might have shot you. Told me he’d given it some serious thought.”

He stared over at me. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

“It goes clunk, Stanger. Things float around loose in your head and then there is a clunk, and they’ve lined up and make sense.”