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

“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.”

14

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.”