“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.”
“Let me in on this clunk.”
“Did you mention to Janice Holton anything about a certain McGee from Fort Lauderdale?”
“Not word one.”
“Phone rings once and that’s all. In the Holton house and in the Pike house too.”
“Slow and steady, man. Try speaking American.”
“Janice has a nice warm wonderful tender man she sees on the sly. Nothing physical about the relationship, she says. She found out about Holton and Penny from somebody who whispered the news to her over the phone.”
“Do tell!”
“Lover’s code, Stanger. The sneak play. You have a place you meet. A nice safe place. So you call up and let the phone ring once and you hang up. The other party looks at his or her watch. Five minutes later it rings again. Meet me at five o’clock at the usual place if you can, honey. Or eight minutes later, or two minutes later, or twelve minutes later for noon or midnight. So Tom Pike told her about me, some casual thing about a man named McGee who’d known his wife, sister-in-law, and mother-in-law in Lauderdale nearly six years ago, and who came to lunch. Maybe my coming to lunch busted up a tryst. She let it slip casually without thinking.”
“So who whispers? Tom Pike for chrissake?”
“It doesn’t make much sense.”
“When Holton got his call from the whisperer, Tom Pike was flying to Jacksonville. Okay, so Nudenbarger told him about the note, but what would be the point? I mean even if he could make the call. Get Holton all jammed up? What for? Tom Pike isn’t the kind to walk out on his marriage, fouled up as it is. And if he’s got Janice Holton on the string, what is he proving or accomplishing?”
“Janice was supposed to have a big date with him Saturday, out of town, I guess. But Rick fouled it up by going along, and she couldn’t get word to Tom that she was stuck with her husband and would actually have to go see her sister over in Vero Beach.”