“Golly, where did the time go? Meg is a good neighbor, but I don’t want to take too much advantage. Mr. McGee?”
“Travis.”
“Travis, I didn’t mean to sound like a long cry of woe, but it’s made me feel better somehow, comparing bruises with somebody.”
“Good luck to you, Janice.”
“And to you too.” I had gotten out. She clambered over to the driver’s seat, snapped the belt on, and pulled it back to her slender dimension. “Night, now,” she called, and backed out and swung around and out onto the divided highway, upshifting skillfully as she went.
I projected a telepathic suggestion to her unknown friend. Grab that one, man. Richard Haslo Holton was too blind to see what he had. She’s got fire, integrity, courage, restraint. And she is a very handsome lively creature. Grab her if you can, because even though there are quite a few of them around, hardly any of them ever get loose.
No messages, no blinking red light on the phone. The maid had turned the bed down. Small hours of the morning. When I put the light out, a freckled ghost roamed the room. I said good night to her. “We’ll find out, Miss Penny,” I told her. “Somehow we’ll find out and you can stop this wandering around motel rooms at night.”
12
I HAD A hell of a night. Hundreds of dreams and from what little I could remember of them, they all had the same pattern. Either somebody was running after me to tell me something important and I could not stop running from them or understand why I couldn’t stop, or I was running headlong after somebody else who was slowly moving away no matter how hard I ran, moving away in a car or a bus or a train. Sometimes it was Penny, sometimes Helena. I woke with an aching tiredness of bone, a mouth like a cricket cage, grainy eyes, and skin that seemed to have stretched so that it was too big for me and wanted to hang in tired, draped folds.
After endless toothbrushing and a shower that did no good I phoned the Fort Courtney Police Department and left word for Stanger that I had called.
My breakfast had just been served when he settled into the chair across the table from me and told the waitress to bring him some hot tea.
“You look poorly, McGee.”
“Slept poorly, feel poorly.”
“That’s my story, every morning of my life. You get yourself a swing and a miss with Janice Holton?”
“They took the trip to Vero Beach together. And you could confirm it by finding out who she left the kids with, an old friend twenty miles from here, in the direction of Vero Beach. And Holton is serious about believing somebody killed Doctor Sherman. The Holton marriage has bombed out. She knew about the nurse. She’s going through the motions for the sake of the kids until she can find some way to land on her feet. And I think she will, sooner or later.”
He blew on his hot tea and took a sip and stared at me and shook his head slowly. “Now, aren’t you the one! By God, she cozies up pretty good to some damn insurance investigator.”
“I didn’t have to use it. You gave me a better approach.”
He aimed his little dusty brown eyes at me. “I did?”
I put my fork down and smiled across at him. “Yes, indeed you did, you silly half-ass fumbling excuse for a cop.”
“Now, don’t you get your–”
“You knew Holton was screwing her, Stanger. You knew that the note you found made it clear to anybody who can read simple words that she and I had something going for us. So what did you think Holton would do after he saw the note or a copy of it? Chuckle and say, Well, well, well, how about that? You probably know even that the ex-assistant state attorney carries a gun. But did you make any effort to tip me so I wouldn’t get shot? Not good old Stanger, the lawman. Thanks, Stanger. Anytime I can do any little thing for you, look me up.”