# The Case of the Secret Handshake
Strip: The Secret Handshake
Meta: 6 panels · 3 across × 2 down · LEAD: CONNIE CHASE · panels 2–3 are one phone call
Lead: Connie Chase. Present day. Panels 1–4 are one afternoon; panels 5–6 are the week that follows. Entirely present tense — no flashback, no time tags, no double frames anywhere on this page. Panels 2 and 3 are one telephone call.
The wordplay stays on the radio. The runaround over the men's names is a sustained spoken bit that needs five minutes and an ear; drawn, it reads as a joke somebody had to explain. This page gets its entertainment from the plot and from Connie's diction instead.
Radio script at radio-secret-handshake.md; radio show at radio-secret-handshake.html.
> **This is the source.** The build is `comic-secret-handshake.html`, generated from this file
> by `rake comedy:build`. Write here; the build is disposable and gets overwritten.
>
> Format: `##` opens a row · `**PANEL n · tone**` opens a panel · `>` is a
> balloon, one per line · `!` is the art note · `` `backticks` `` are
> on-screen text · everything else is a caption. They render in the order
> written, and captions number themselves (CAP 1/2, CAP 2/2). Blank line
> between blocks; a caption or balloon may wrap onto unmarked lines.
>
> Tones: `noir` `arena` `turn` `product`, plus `flashback` and `wide`. A tone
> carries forward, so write it only where it changes; the first panel must state
> one. Modifiers never carry: `wide` describes one frame, not a run.
> `Layout: widerow` under a row heading merges it to one frame, whose beats are
> then `### BEAT n` blocks each holding their own captions.
---
## Row 1 — the case (full noir · one afternoon, one telephone call)
**PANEL 1 · noir**
Halfway through a study you sit down with every sheet you got and square it against the schedule. Coordinators gotta coordinate.
45 minutes in and a cold sweat hits my brow. A weekly survey from a man with an alibi: he was getting his appendix out at Belleville that week.
**PANEL 2 · noir**
Somebody wasn't who they claimed to be. I need to do some investigatin'. Trouble is I can't tell a soul out there what my business is. Makes for a short conversation with the foreman.
> I'm after Ray Auer.
> Ray's out. Had his appendix took.
> I know he's out. Somebody answered for him Tuesday.
> And what's that got to do with me?
**PANEL 3 · noir**
> Then who did I talk to?
> Whoever picked up.
He wasn't giving me the runaround. That's what made me sweat even harder. This could be way worse than I thought.
One telephone bolted to that wall, and every man on the floor with a right to it. Problem is it's hard to pick a man's voice out of a lineup when the line is scratchier than my old '45's.
## Row 2 — the break (hinge, then the product)
**PANEL 4 · turn**
`⚠ SHARED CONTACT NUMBER · 3 PARTICIPANTS`
Now I knew what happened. Thoughts of the study going up in smoke filled my head. I quit dialing and put one plain question to the system: anybody else on any of my studies sharing a telephone with somebody?
Second and a half. Kirkwood, like I figured. Three consent signatures. One phone number. The consent was informed. The telephone calls weren't. A recipe for perjury, forgery, or both.
**PANEL 5 · product**
So Thursday I drove out to Kirkwood with the sheets on the seat beside me and set up at the same folding table we signed 'em on.
> Ray was laid up. That phone rang and rang. Somebody had to answer it.
> …Was that wrong?
> No, sir. It wasn't wrong. It just wasn't Ray.
Turns out everyone was just trying to be helpful. Nobody lied to me. Nobody had to.
**PANEL 6 · product**
> Give me your word.
> [style=font-size:0.8rem] …Buttercup.
> Morning, Walter.
Software can see that three men have the same number. It can't see the face at the other end when I call. That takes a tank of gas and a folding table.