John D MacDonald – Travis McGee 10 The Girl In The Plain Brown Wrapper

“Lew, you cut across and get the car and bring it around in here. Might as well stop and pick up our gear over there on the way. We’ll be waiting right here.”

With a last look at the body, Nudenbarger hurried off.

The body had stopped turning. Stanger stared into the distance, sighed, spat. “Sorry I had to rap you like that.”

I looked into his small dusty brown eyes. “I guess it was the quickest way to stop me, Al.”

“Feel all right?”

“Just a little bit sick to my stomach.”

“Funny. So do I.”

21

I STAYED AROUND and did what I could to help Bridget Pearson through the worst of it. In a conference about strategy, Ben Gaffner had accepted my suggestion that nothing would be gained by opening up the actual way in which Maureen had died. It could bring down on us a lot of awkward questions from high places.

Better to make it an identification error over in Lime County and let the phosphate pit story stand.

He agreed that there was so little to go on that Dr. Sherman’s death might as well remain on the books as suicide. But the Penny Woertz murder had to be taken out of the active file, and properly closed. That meant some acceptable explanation of motive. Dave Broon came in handy. He was smart enough to have started talking about strangling Tom Pike in a fit of anger and then, upon discovering he was dead, trying to string him up to make it look like suicide.

That gave Gaffner a choice-to play ball with Broon or to go for murder first. Murder first would need only the eyewitnesses to state that they had seen Pike trying to get free as Broon was slowly hauling him clear of the ground. Gaffner had, Broon brought in for a private playback of the tape of the conversation under the live oak. Broon then said it was his certain knowledge that Pike was having an affair with the nurse and had killed her out of jealousy. Gaffner, out of respect for the reputation of the deceased Miss Woertz, edited it down to Pike’s pursuit of her, with the crime of passion occurring doubtless when his advances were repulsed. All this cooperation earned Broon the chance at a plea of guilty to murder second, with, whether the sentence was ten, fifteen, or twenty, a chance at parole in six.

Even though by funeral time-a ceremony for two, for Mr. and Mrs. Pike-the swarm of auditors and examiners were beginning to find that Tom Pike had been distributing newly invested capital to previous investors and calling it a distribution of capital gains, Fort Courtney was full of people who could not, and would never, believe that such a brilliant and warm and considerate and handsome and well-mannered man could have ever juggled a single account in any questionable manner, to say nothing of stabbing anyone.

No, it all had to be some kind of vicious and clever conspiracy, engineered by Them. They were the subtle, hidden enemy, hiring that Broon person, making some kind of intricate deal with him, and then probably taking over toe wonderful properties Tom Pike had such great plans for at the time of his death.

So the funeral was well-attended. Biddy knew that all the allegations were so absurd as to be grotesque. And so did Janice Holton. Biddy was so certain, that I could not risk the slightest slur or shadow of doubt to color anything I said to her, or she would never have let me try to help her in any way. She kept going on tranquilizers and raw courage. I helped her close up toe house. It would be sold once all estate and inheritance matters were straightened out, and the funds would go to the unfortunate who had invested in Development Unlimited. Fortunately, as there was no doubt of Maureen’s having died first, the trust fund would go directly to Bridget. Because Maureen had signed certain papers in connection with her husband’s enterprises, had he died first, it was possible the monies might have been diverted to toe creditors of Development Unlimited.