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.'
'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.'
Stanger said thoughtfully, 'I'm not going to fault those two, not for one minute, McGee. Janice is a hell of a lot of woman. Two sorry marriages, and they weren't the ones who made the marriages sorry. Jesus! It's a lot better than if he got involved with the kid sister.'
'Who happens to be in love with him.'
'Think so?'
'Sure of it.'
'Then, Janice could be a kind of escape valve. Well, Tom Pike would step slow and careful, and if we hadn't... you hadn't added it up, I'll bet a dime nobody would have ever found out about it. I'd say one thing, if it isn't like you say physical, it must be a pretty good strain on them. That Janice is more than something ready. It's going to get physical, friend. What have we got? Some damn whisperer trying to make trouble for people.'
'Al, out of the whole town, who would you pick as the whisperer? Not by any process of logic. Just by hunch.'
'I guess the one I told you about. Dave Broon.'
'On somebody's orders?'
'Or playing a personal angle. Turk puts him on a case, he's cute. He's got good moves. He comes up with things. And he's lucky. That's a help in cop work. But he doesn't give a goddamn about whether anything is right or wrong, anybody is legal or illegal. It isn't his business to find new work for the sheriff. If he spotted the mayor's wife shoplifting, he'd follow her home and invite himself in for a drink and a little chat. That kind.'
'Could he have found out about that note without you knowing he found out about it?'
'Oh, hell yes. Far as I know he might have the leverage on somebody so that he gets a dupe of every photocopy of any evidence they run through our shop. This whole city and county is a big piece of truck garden to Dave Broon. He goes around plowing and planting and fertilizing, and harvesting everything ripe.'
'How is he with bugs?'
'Not an expert but maybe better than average. He has good contacts. If it was something tricky, he'd bring in one of the experts from Miami. He can afford it.'
'So we could be bugged?'
'It's possible,' he said. 'But not likely.'
'He isn't too bright, Stanger. Not bright enough to be alarming.'
'Dave alarms me, friend.'
I showed him the toilet kit and the toothbrush, and the two twenties under the soap dish, and explained the situation. At first it bothered Stanger that if Broon was reasonably sure he had not left any traces, why should he advertise by taking the money? I finally made him see that taking it was the lesser of the two risks, because if I did have some way of learning that my room had been gone over carefully, finding the money untouched would alert me that it was not just petty theft.
'Broon has a family?'
'Never has. Lives alone. Lives pretty good. Recently moved to a penthouse apartment on a new high-rise out by Lake Azure. Usually got some broad living there with him. Big convertible, speedboat, big wardrobe. But on the job he dresses cheap and drives a crummy car. I've worked with him sometimes. He has a way of making the suspect choke up and then get in a big hurry to tell all.'
'Description?'
'Five seven, maybe a hundred and forty pounds. Knocking fifty but does a good job of looking thirty-five. Blond, and I think it's a dye job and a hairpiece. Keeps himself in good shape. Works out a lot. Manicures, massages, sunlamp in the winter. Either his teeth are capped or it's a hell of a good set of plates. Gets good mileage out of the accents he uses. All the way from British to redneck. He's in so solid with the party, he just about sets his own work week, and there's not a damned thing Amos Turk can do about it. Couple of years ago one of Turk's big deputies took a dislike to the way Dave was goofing off and making him do the work. Dave was giving away fifty pounds, better than six inches in height and reach, and at least twenty years. They went out into the parking lot. I guess it took six minutes. Didn't even muss up Dave's hair. Then they picked the deputy up and put him in a county car and took him over to the hospital. He never has looked exactly the same and he calls Dave by the name of Mr. Broon, sir. Just say he's tough and he's careful and he's smart enough. The odd job he's best at is if somebody needs a little extra leverage to use on somebody else. Then they get hold of Dave Broon and tell him to see what he can come up with. And it's a rare human person there isn't something about that you can put to use, if you know what it is.'
Then I gave him a complete rundown on my talk with Helen Boughmer. He said it sounded as if something or somebody had scared her, and I did not tell him that his appraisal seemed to belabor the obvious.
He reported no progress to speak of on the murder of the nurse. He said, 'Trouble with that damned place, the architect laid out those garden apartments for privacy. They kind of back up to little open courts, and there's so many redwood fences it's like a maze back in there. If whoever killed her came to the back door,
