The Girl in the Plain Brown Wrapper

by John D. MacDonald

  But he was not aware of the way potential suicides stay usually with one method and never more than two. But here we have four.

  The reason Dr. Sherman became ever more troublesome seems clear. He would slowly come to realize that there was a very small chance of their ever using the evidence of his wife’s murder against him, because if indicted, he would certainly be expected to tell of the induced abortion performed at the request of Pike, with leverage by Broon, and tell of the drug that he had been supplying Pike to inject into Maureen, the drug that had caused the mental effects that baffled the neurologists and the psychiatrists. Meanwhile he had been induced to invest everything in Pike’s ventures, even to cashing in his insurance policies and investing the proceeds.

  Maybe Sherman began to talk about confession. Maybe he began to gouge money out of Pike in return for supplying the puromycin.

  How was that murder done? A week before she died, Penny Woertz had a dream that reminded her of something. A trapdoor in Sherman’s forehead, a little orange light like the one that winks on the face of the Dormed control. Count the flashes. Could she have remembered some casual comment that Sherman made about some trouble with the electrosleep device he had supplied for Maureen Pike and taught Biddy to operate?

  A careful check might reveal that on the night the doctor died the daughters and Helena might have driven down to the Casey Key house. And it might reveal that Pike was out of town, in Orlando or Jacksonville. There he could have rented a car, gone home, gotten the Dormed and put it in its case and taken it down to Sherman’s office to be tested. It was portable. The case was pale. The machine was heavy. A tall man had been seen leaving Sherman’s office. Tall is relative. Pike was fairly tall. Six feet almost? Height is such a distinctive thing that a pair of shoes with extreme lift is a very efficient disguise. I have a pair of shoes with almost a four-inch lift. It takes my six four up to six eight. With them I wear a jacket a couple of inches longer than my normal forty-six extra long. People remember the size. They remember seeing a giant. They remember little else about him.

  Simplest thing in the world to take it in for Sherman to check. “Maureen says it hurts her. Biddy and I have tried it. There are little sharp pains at first. Try it and see.”

  In moments the doctor is asleep, with the impulses set at maximum. Take the key out of the pocket. Unlock the drug safe. Roll the sleeve up. Tie the tubing around the arm. Inject the lethal shot of morphine. Untie the rubber tubing. Go and collect all the puromycin out of the backroom supplies. Wait a little while and then take the headpiece off, unplug the machine, repack it in its case, and leave.

  Helen Boughmer promises trouble. Tell Broon to find a way to shut her mouth. Broon has no trouble.

  Holton and Nurse Woertz begin to make a crusade of the whole matter. Nothing they can find out, probably. Broon discovers and reports to Pike that Holton and the nurse have become intimate. Then whisper the news to Janice because, disloyalty being contagious, she can be a good source of information about Holton’s progress in his independent investigation. Make the casual contact with her. By being sympathetic, play upon her hurt and discontent. Keep it all on a platonic basis, but be as cautious and discreet as though it were a physical affair—because were Biddy to learn of it, some unpleasant new problems would arise.

  Helena dies. Perhaps the new source of funds, a large lump sum from her estate, is becoming more and more imperative. Broon had gained a lot of leverage with the murder of Sherman and could become increasingly expensive to Tom Pike.

  Enter McGee, a worrisome development to Tom Pike when he learns that Helena has been writing to McGee. He does not know if Helena suspected anything. The story of tracing the Likely Lady seems implausible. Then he gets the little query from Penny Woertz. Did you tell the doctor you were having trouble with the Dormed? Did he check it for you?

  Put Broon onto McGee. Then Broon reports that Holton has asked him to check McGee’s room. Puzzling. Then, Broon reports, Holton and the nurse and McGee spent quite a bit of time together in 109 and then Holton left. The nurse stayed with McGee all night. But by then Pike has arranged how to take care of Penny Woertz. He has already arranged the Saturday date with Janice. He has temporarily transferred the Wennersehn woman to Jacksonville and has the key to her apartment, two doors from Miss Woertz.

  At that point something made me aware of Stanger and I glanced at him and saw him glaring at me in anger and indignation.

  “Sorry, Al. When he missed connections with Janice, I think he went to the apartment alone. Had he met her and had she followed him here in her car, I think that he would have spent a good part of the afternoon making love to her. After all, it wasn’t going to be anything she could talk about later. Then, perhaps, when she napped, he would go over to Penny’s place. She would let him in. He would kill her with whatever weapon came easiest to hand. Go back and perhaps pin down the sleeping woman and inject her with a massive shot of puromycin. Lead her in her dazed condition over to Penny’s apartment. Shove her in and close the door. Drive away. She would not recall having any date, any assignation. She would be in the dead nurse’s apartment, with the shears in the dead throat of the woman who was sleeping with her husband. Traumatic emotional amnesia. Not a terribly unusual thing.

  “But he lay there for a long time thinking it over and maybe decided it was a risk he could accept. Blood spattered on his shoes and pants legs. He went back to the Wennersehn apartment and cleaned himself and the floor and burned the rags in the fireplace. The maid swept the fireplace out on Monday.”

  “Who will verify that?” Gaffner asked.

  “It better be Tom Pike. My source is not available. I completely forgot who told me.”

  “We can give you a long time to sit and think.”

  “I have a terrible memory.”

  Yellow stare. Small shrug. “Continue.”

  I told them that investigation would probably prove that Tom Pike landed in Jacksonville Sunday morning in plenty of time to direct-dial Rick Holton and whisper to him about the note, knowing that bullheaded Holton would track it down. And, having done so, because of the contents that Tom had conned out of Nudenbarger, might solve the McGee problem suddenly and dramatically, which would take Holton out of the play too.

  When that didn’t work, Pike had put Broon back to work on me. I mentioned that Broon could well own over forty rental houses in Southtown, and it might be interesting to find out how he could live so well and afford to buy real estate too.

  “And that brings me up to the point where I burgled the Pike house and picked up this stuff. It’s in detail on Al’s tape, so I suggest you listen to that.”

  We all did. I was glad of the break. My throat felt raw.

  One of the group was missing. When I had told of the letter and the check for twenty-five thousand forwarded to me by D. Wintin Hardahee, and how he had been cooperative at first and then had brushed me off completely, Gaffner had sent Mr. Lozier, who knew Hardahee, out to bring him in, with instructions not to tell him what it was all about.

  Lozier came in alone and sat down quietly and listened to the balance of the tape I had made in the car.

  Gaffner turned to Lozier and said. “Well?”

  “Well, sir, that is just about the weirdest—”

  “I was asking about Hardahee.”

  “Sir, I didn’t tell him what it was about. He came willingly. And all of a sudden, halfway here, he started crying. I pulled over, and when he could talk, he said that he had promised Dave Broon he would cooperate and Broon had promised not to turn him in.”

  “For what?”

  The young lawyer looked very uncomfortable. “Apparently, sir, Mr. Hardahee has been having … uh … a homosexual affair with his tennis partner, and Dave Broon bugged the cabin where they’ve been meeting for over a year.”

  “How was he asked to cooperate?”

  “Broon wanted to know the contents of the letter Mrs. Trescott wrote to Mr. McGee. He convinced Broon he had never had
a chance to read it. He told Broon about the check to Mr. McGee. Mr. Broon asked him to give Mr. McGee no advice or cooperation at all. Broon told him that he might hear from Mr. Pike about an investment opportunity, and when he did, it might be a good thing to go into it, substantially.”

  “Where is Hardahee?” Gaffner asked softly.

  “He’s sitting down in the car, sir.”

  “Well, Larry, suppose you go down and drive the poor sad silly son of a bitch home. Tell him we’ll have a little talk someday soon. Tell him that in the absence of a complaint, there’s no charge.”

  As Lozier left, Gaffner turned to Stanger. “Would it be asking entirely too much to have you go out and come back here with Broon, Lieutenant?”

  “I swear to God, I have been hunting that man here and there and up and down the whole day long, and he is plain gone.”

  He shifted his unwinking stare to me. “And it is your thought, Mr. McGee, that Mr. Pike will suddenly crack under the strain and start bleating confessions at us all?”

  “No, sir. I don’t think he will ever confess to anything at all. I don’t think he feels any guilt or remorse. But you see, if Maureen disappears, there is no proof of death. He can’t bail out by marrying the younger sister. If he’s in a tight spot, he’ll have to make some kind of move.” It astonished me a little to hear myself call him “sir.” It is not a word I use often or loosely.

  “Don’t you think, Mr. McGee, that you are assuming that a very intelligent man like Pike has committed some very violent and foolish acts?”

  “Right now they seem violent and foolish because we all have a pretty good idea of the things he’s done and why he’s done them. But when things get more and more complex, Mr. Gaffner, it leaves more room for chance. For luck, good and bad. Where would we be with all this if I hadn’t come into the picture? Not that I’ve been particularly bright about any part of this. I was something new added to the mix and I guess I’ve been a catalytic agent. His luck started to run the other way. The biggest piece of bad luck was when I decided not to park over by the other cars. When she hit the overhead, it was a hell of a sound. I didn’t know what it was. I knew it was something right over my head. One hell of a smack to make the whole prestressed roof ring like a drum. Okay. No workmen around. Building empty except for the party on the top floor. So I had to find out what made that noise. Maybe I knew what it had to be. Maybe my subconscious fitting things together in a single flash of intuition. What if I hadn’t found her?”

  “He doesn’t know you found the body.”

  “And so he’s handling it according to plan. She ran off again. Big search. Worry. Then in the morning the workmen find it, and it fits with her recent history of suicide attempts and her condition. He’s going through the motions now. He thinks he’s home free. Violent, yes. Foolish, however, is another word. I think he’s legally sane, but I think he’s a classic sociopath. Do you know the pattern? Superficially bright, evidently quite emotional, lots of charm, an impression of complete honesty and integrity.”

  “I have done the necessary reading in that area, Mr. McGee,” Gaffner said.

  “Then you know their willingness to take risks, their confidence they can get away with anything. They’re sly and they’re cruel. They never admit guilt. They are damned hard to convict.” He nodded agreement.

  I told him about the couple who had worked for the Pikes. I told him of the golf club incident. Then I described Tom Pike’s bedroom, the strange sterility and neatness of it, how impersonal it seemed, without any imprint of personality.

  Gaffner asked Stanger if he could add anything. “Not much on him,” Al said, examining the sodden end of a dead cigar. “Florida born. Lived here and there around the center of the state, growing up. His folks worked the groves, owned little ones and lost them, took over some on lease, made out some years and crapped out other years. Don’t know if there’s any of them left or where they are now. Tom Pike went off to school up north someplace. Scholarship, I think. Came here a few years ago, just married, had money enough to build that house out there. I guess there must have been credit reports on him for the size loans he’s got into and I guess if they turned up anything out of line, he wouldn’t have got the loans. The people that don’t like him, they really don’t like him a damned bit, but they keep their mouths shut. The ones that do, they think he’s the greatest thing ever walked on two legs.”

  After a silence Ben Gaffner said softly, “Ego. The inner conviction that everybody else in the world is soft and silly and gullible. Maybe we are, because we’re weighted down with excess baggage the few Tom Pikes of this world don’t have to bother with. Feelings. The capacity to feel human emotions, love, guilt, pity, anger, remorse, hate, despair. They can’t feel such things but don’t know they can’t, so they think our insides are just like theirs, and they think the world is a con game and think we fake it all, just as they have learned to do.”

  I said. “You’ve done your reading, sir.”

  “What have we got right now? Let’s say we could open Broon up and make him the key witness for the prosecution. If he confirms what you think he can confirm, McGee, then I’d take a chance on going for an indictment. But Pike is going to be able to get top talent to defend him. The jury is going to have to either believe Broon or believe Pike. Circumstantial case. Pike is likable and persuasive. And I’m saddled with a story to present that sounds too fantastic and I’m saddled with medical experts who’ll be contradicted by his medical experts. One long, long trial, a lot of the public monies spent on it, and I would say four to one against a conviction.”

  “About that,” Stanger agreed unhappily.

  “So what if there’s no way to open Broon up? Or what if he’s gone for good? Nothing to go on. I’d be a fool to go after an indictment.”

  “Gone for good?” Stanger asked. “Little cleanup job by Pike?”

  “Only if Pike could be sure Broon wouldn’t leave anything behind that might turn up in the wrong hands. Otherwise, on the run. Cash in the chips and leave for good, knowing that sooner or later Pike would want to get rid of the only link to all the rest of it.”

  “So where does that leave us, Mr. Gaffner?” Stanger asked.

  “I think you and Rico better start moving. What time is it? Three fifteen. Best get a panel delivery. We’ll have to make sure Pike isn’t in that area anywhere. Get that body out of there at first light. Drive it back over to Lime City. Is that old phosphate pit on the Hurley ranch dry at the bottom?”

  “Since he cut through, it runs off good.”

  “About eighty-foot drop down that north wall. Get hold of that big matron with the white hair.”

  “Mrs. Anderson.”

  “She can keep her mouth shut. I want the fancy clothes off that body, tagged and marked and initialed by both of you and put away in my safe, Rico, and I want her dressed in something cheap and worn out. Put her at the bottom of that drop, then, soon as you can, you get her found. You could tell Hessling to go check a report of kids messing around there last night. Then I can come in on it through normal channels and we’ll process an autopsy request, and I’ll make sure I have somebody come in to backstop Doc Rause and run a complete series on the brain tissue.”

  He turned toward me with the slow characteristic movement of his round head, moon face. “It isn’t all that big a risk, in case we get nowhere. She kept wandering off and had to be found. So she wandered off and hitched a ride maybe, and ended up dead in the bottom of a phosphate pit.”

  Stanger said, “Won’t Pike make sure she’s listed as missing, and won’t she fit the description enough so that he might come over to make the identification?”

  “We’d better make a positive on her. We can change our mind later on. Who do you think, Rico?”

  The pale, mild investigator said, “That drifter girl that jumped bond on that soliciting charge four, five months back? If the prints matched, it could be a screwup in the filing system that we could catch later on.”


  “I like it,” Gaffner said. Lozier had returned. He said Hardahee had pulled himself together. Gaffner said they would decide later on if they wanted an affidavit from Hardahee.

  Then Gaffner swiveled his head slowly and nailed us each in turn with the yellow appraisal. “All of you listen carefully. We are engaged in foolishness. You do not have to be told to keep your mouths shut. I do not buy all of McGee’s construction. I buy enough of it to continue the idiocy he started. We are all going to remember that our man won’t get jumpy. He won’t become superstitious and fearful. Psychos are notoriously pragmatic. If a body is gone, somebody took it. He’ll wait to find out who and why, and while he is waiting he’ll make the perfectly normal and understandable moves of the alarmed husband with a missing wife. Stanger, you and Rico better get going. And after Rico is loaded and gone, Stanger, your job is find Broon for me. Lozier, wait in the hall out there while I have a word with Mr. McGee.”

  The table had been cleared of gear. All that remained were the overflowing ashtrays. Gaffner looked as fresh and rested as when the session had begun.

  He stood at attention and looked up into my face. “You’re the bait, of course. When the woman is not found, Miss Pearson is going to feel more and more guilty. She is going to blame herself. And so she will confess to her brother-in-law that she knew Maureen was gone and didn’t tell him. She will say that you saw Maureen leaving. Then you are the key, because you can supply the information about the body. No body, and the whole scheme is dead.”

  “So he has to talk to me.”

  “And he is still wondering what’s in that letter Mrs. Trescott wrote you.”

  “And what he says to me, that’s what you have to know. That’s what you need so you can move. What if he decides to accept his losses, write this one off, go on from here? What if he can squeak through, assuming he is in a little financial bind?”

  “As soon as the working day starts, Mr. McGee, I am going to make some confidential phone calls to some of the more important businessmen I know over here in Fort Courtney. I’ll tell them it’s just a little favor. I can say that as a matter of courtesy I was told that the Internal Revenue people are building up a case against Pike for submitting fraudulent tax returns, and it might be a good time to bail out, if they happen to be in any kind of joint venture with him. I think he might feel a lot of immediate pressure. You could provide the answers that would relieve it. I think we can hurry him along.”