Murder in Haste

by Brett Halliday

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  Murder in Haste

  A Mike Shayne Mystery

  Brett Halliday

  MYSTERIOUSPRESS.COM

  Chapter One

  As the powerful radio-equipped Cadillac slowed for the exit onto one of the smallest of the Bay Harbor islands, Chief-of-Detectives Peter Painter leaned forward and told his driver to shut off the siren. He was calling on a lady, and he thought it might be considered bad taste to arrive with his siren wailing. The neighbors might think she was being arrested.

  He removed a cigarette from his filter holder and crushed it in the back-seat ashtray as the Cadillac drifted to a stop before a rambling stucco house. There was another Cadillac in the driveway, this one a white convertible. The rear lawn sloped off gently to a private dock and a boathouse.

  Painter got out, giving the back of his jacket a smart tug to get rid of wrinkles. “Now don’t just sit there,” he told Heinemann, his driver. “Move around. Stay under cover and keep your eyes open.”

  “Sure, Chief,” Heinemann said. He was a short, balding detective with overlong arms and grease-blackened fingernails. “How do I move around and stay under cover at the same time? And it might help if I knew what I was supposed to keep my eyes open for.”

  Painter, always on the alert for signs of insubordination, shot him a sharp look and started for the house. But he turned back.

  “You’ve got a point there,” he admitted. “You don’t want to be taken by surprise. I have reason to believe that somebody may try to take a shot at me. If it does happen, it won’t be a crackpot operation. It’ll be a professional job all the way. That’s why I think we’re all right here—there’s only the one exit off the island. But that’s no excuse for goofing off.”

  “No, sir,” Heinemann said, leaving on the parking lights and sliding out from behind the wheel. “Because if there’s any shooting, I’m right here in the line of fire.”

  “And remember that.”

  Satisfied with the set of his jacket and the position of his necktie, Painter went up the front walk to the house, coming down too hard on his heels, as he invariably did. He was a short man, and to get the most out of his limited stature he held himself as erect as a bow-string. His shoes with their extra-thick heels were highly polished. He wore made-to-measure suits, and in the opinion of his numerous critics, he was usually somewhat over-dressed for his job.

  He sounded the bell, and rearranged his breast-pocket handkerchief while he waited.

  The door was opened by Rose Heminway, an attractive widow in her early thirties. She had shoulder-length blonde hair, and was wearing tapered green slacks and a vest of the same material. Painter suppressed a small gulp. He was seeing her in slacks for the first time, and these particular slacks were very effective, though so tight that he thought she probably had trouble putting them on.

  “It didn’t take you long to get here, Mr. Painter,” she said, smiling. “I’ve been listening for your siren.”

  “I don’t always use it,” Painter said. He followed her in. “And after all the time we’ve spent together the last few weeks, don’t you think we could start using first names?”

  She smiled over her shoulder. “A fine idea, Peter. I was going to suggest it myself. But I confess I had an ulterior motive when I asked you to stop in. There’s something I want to say to you.”

  They went into a pleasantly-furnished living room. In daylight the big windows across one end of the room would give a good view of the north bay. She saw him looking at a huge abstract painting on another wall. “Like it?”

  “Very much,” he said doubtfully.

  “It’s my pride and joy. Sit down, Peter. I think you’ll find the sofa most comfortable.”

  He sat where she pointed, being careful with the creases in his pants. “Now don’t tell me we have to go into the Sam Harris case any more. I was afraid you’d bring it up, but haven’t we exhausted that subject? I know it’s exhausted me.”

  She leaned over a tray on the low table in front of the sofa and put ice in a highball glass. “Norma Harris came to see me again this afternoon. Scotch or bourbon?”

  “Bourbon, thanks. And what did dear, sweet Norma have to say? It couldn’t be anything new. I must have heard her repertoire of insults fifty times by now.”

  She made the drinks and handed him his, then sat down at the opposite end of the sofa, bringing up her knees between them.

  “She’s getting frantic, Peter. Really and truly frantic. I thought she was on the point of screaming a few times, and I don’t know that I blame her. The execution’s only five days away. She says that when she went to your office today you refused to see her.”

  Painter flicked impatiently at his little hairline mustache.

  “There’s no reason I should waste my time on every kooky dame who keeps coming in and having hysterics and turning the place into a madhouse. How do you think we can get any work done with that going on? We have other problems besides hers.”

  “I understand that, Peter, but I can understand her position, too. Time’s running short.”

  “I’m aware of that,” Painter said. “There’s a big red ring around the date on my calendar. I don’t need to be reminded of it every hour on the hour. In my humble opinion, she’s putting on the loyal wife act a little late. The woman’s no better than a chippy. I may be doing her an injustice, but I don’t really think so.”

  He tasted the highball and shook it to make the ice-cubes rattle. “What else did she say to you? You sounded—I don’t know how to describe it, sort of strained on the phone.”

  “Did I?” she said. “I probably did. Whenever I’m talking to somebody who feels that strongly about something, they can always manage to convince me. It’s only when I brood about it afterward that I begin to have doubts. Well, I might as well tell you. She—she says she’s sure you’ve turned up some new evidence which you’re deliberately suppressing. Don’t say anything for a minute, Peter. I know it’s ridiculous. I know you wouldn’t be a party to anything like that. But I can see how her mind works.

  “You handled the original case against her husband. She’s given you some new leads, and it really hasn’t seemed to me that you’ve been—well, too energetic about following them up. You’re the expert, and there’s probably a perfectly good reason. I don’t think you’d deliberately sit on something, just to protect yourself against a charge of being stupid or careless three years ago. That’s what Mrs. Harris thinks, however, and she’s working herself up to giving it to the papers. She’s still quite a good looking girl. They might make quite a big thing out of it.”

  “I don’t think I’ll worry about that,” Painter said calmly, drinking.

  She hesitated. “There’s one other thing. As I say, she can be very persuasive. It’s her idea to call a press conference in her lawyer’s office, and she wants me to be there to back her up. She’s right about one thing—it would be an effective piece of publicity. Her husband was sentenced to death for killing mine. If she tells the newspapers she thinks he’s innocent, that’s not such a sensational piece of news. But if I say the same—”

  Painter’s eyes narrowed. “Do you mean to sit there and tell me you intend to associate yourself publicly with this psychopath? You’re going to accuse me of letting an innocent man go to
his death, for fear of being blamed for a shoddy piece of police work three years ago?”

  She refused to meet his eyes. “I wouldn’t put it exactly that way, Peter. But it has been almost three weeks since I came to you, and as far as I can see you haven’t accomplished a blessed thing.”

  He stirred uneasily. “I keep telling you I’m working on it.”

  “I accepted that at first, but it’s just too vague, Peter. Never mind Norma. Never mind me. Think about Sam Harris in his condemned cell. Surely that same date is marked in red on his calendar, and every day it comes one day nearer.”

  Painter half-emptied his glass and balanced it on his knee while he fished for his cigarette-holder and cigarettes. “I have other things to worry about besides how a condemned murderer is passing his time.”

  She shook her head as he offered her the cigarettes. “But what if he’s innocent? What if something turns up six days from now to prove that Norma is right and the jury and everybody else was wrong? It won’t help Sam Harris, will it? And I testified against him. How do you think I’ll feel?”

  “I’ve been in this business a good many years, Rose,” Painter said. “Why not accept the fact that I know what I’m doing?”

  She shook her head. “I just can’t. Norma didn’t think we should give you even this long, but I talked her into it. Now she’s talked me into doing it her way.”

  Painter fitted a cigarette into his holder and struck a match. “When are you staging this spectacular press conference?”

  “She wanted to call it for tomorrow. I persuaded her to put it off a day, on one condition.”

  “And what condition is that?” Painter said with a slight smile.

  She smoothed the tight green material over her knee. “I can’t see why you could possibly object to this, but maybe you’ll think I ought to have consulted you first. I’m hiring a private detective.”

  “You’re what?’

  “And then if he hasn’t turned up anything in twenty-four hours, we’ll go ahead with the press conference and try to get a stay of execution on the grounds of new evidence. It may not work, but it can’t conceivably do any harm. Everybody says that Michael Shayne is the best man we could—”

  “Shayne!” Painter cried in horror, and his knee jerked violently. His highball glass flew into the air and came down in his lap.

  Rose leaped up. She gathered a handful of small cocktail napkins and thrust them at him. “That drink has been making me nervous. I knew something like that would happen.”

  He mopped at his pants angrily. “Well, how did I know you were going to mention that bum?”

  “I guess I should have asked your advice before I called him,” she said. “I take it you know him?”

  “I know him, all right,” Painter said grimly.

  “Give me your glass. I’ll make another drink.”

  “No, never mind.” He picked up the spilled ice cubes, put them in his empty glass and set it back on the table. “How far has this gone? Have you paid him any money?”

  “Not yet. He hasn’t agreed he’ll take the case, actually. I have a date to talk to him about it in the morning.”

  “Good,” Painter said with relief. “Then it’s not too late to call it off. Take my advice, Rose. Don’t waste your money. You might as well drop it in a sewer, for all the good it’ll do you. I really have been working, no matter what Norma Harris thinks. Why hire somebody to go over the same ground?”

  “But we don’t know what you’ve been doing, don’t you see? We can’t take it on faith any longer.”

  “Well, you have to take it on faith.”

  “Then I’m sorry,” she said stubbornly. “I made an agreement with Norma, and I’ll have to stick to it.”

  Painter ran his fingers through his hair. “Go ahead. It’s your money. But if you won’t be happy unless you hire a private detective, for the love of God stay away from Michael Shayne. I’ll give you the name of a good man on the Beach. He has some competent people working for him, and what’s more important, he has the cooperation and confidence of the police authorities. Unlike Shayne, he keeps out of the headlines.”

  “But what do you have against Michael Shayne, Peter?” she said, puzzled. “I checked quite carefully, I thought. All the people I talked to said he’s done some amazing things.”

  “What have I got against—” Painter sputtered. “Oh, he’s done amazing things, all right. Nobody’s more amazed at the things he gets away with than I am. He’s made himself a career out of cutting corners, out of skating on thin ice, using extra-legal methods and flouting authority, undermining the public’s confidence in dedicated, hard-working officials who don’t do anything glamorous but simply plug away at their jobs year in, year out, for a coolie’s wage, not looking for glory or romance—and the bastard’s luck!” Painter exclaimed, almost incoherently. “The bastard’s blind, dumb luck is beyond belief! I’m asking you as a special favor—don’t go to Shayne. He’ll crucify me!”

  “Crucify you, Peter? I don’t see what you’re getting so excited about. He hasn’t said he’ll do it.”

  “Don’t worry about that,” Painter said bitterly. “Thanks to that fool luck of his, he’s got enough money so he doesn’t have to take on any new cases unless he wants to, but I think I can predict that he’ll fake this one! When he finds out that I’m involved, he’ll jump at it. Don’t you see? We’ve been carrying on a running battle over the years. I don’t maintain that this has been entirely Shayne’s fault.

  “I’ll admit that where that son of a bitch is concerned, I have trouble controlling my temper. Excuse the language, Rose, but I can’t speak about that big red-headed slob in ordinary English. He hates my guts. I hate his. If he thinks he sees a chance to discredit me, to prove I’m trying to railroad an innocent man to his death, he won’t eat, he won’t sleep. Wait and see.”

  “I’m sure he’s intelligent enough to know there’s no question of that, Peter.”

  “Maybe. But in this day and age you don’t have to prove something if you repeat it often enough. Shayne has some close friends on the papers, and they’ll give him all the breaks. I know that man. He’ll throw mud at me with both hands, and maybe in the end he’ll succeed in convincing a few morons that the police work in the Harris case left something to be desired, and I’m trying to cover it up. Believe me, Rose, if you’re thinking about Harris, this is the worst possible thing you can do. Shayne would be so busy trying to build a case against me that he wouldn’t have time for anything else.”

  “But—wouldn’t it amount to the same thing, Peter? I’m not trying to be sarcastic—I’d really like to know. If he actually has this terrific hostility against you, wouldn’t he try to show that Harris is innocent?”

  Painter made a move to stand up. “It’s no use talking to you. Sam Harris is no damn good, and that’s all there is to it. Neither is his wife, and why a person like you should get so wrought up over that precious couple, I’ll never understand. You aren’t committed to Shayne. Let me give you this other name.”

  She frowned. “No, Norma would never agree to that. She was dead set against the whole idea until I happened to mention Michael Shayne. Maybe she’s heard about this antipathy between you.”

  Painter removed his carefully folded handkerchief and patted his mouth. “You’re forcing my hand, and I wish you’d have a little confidence in me and let me set my own schedule, but if you won’t, you won’t. Will you at least do this? Postpone your meeting with Shayne until the afternoon?”

  She studied him. “But why?”

  “I can’t tell you that. But I can promise you one thing. By noon tomorrow the whole question will be academic, and you can save yourself some money. You won’t need a private detective.”

  “I don’t know why you have to make such a mystery of this,” she said. “But if you think it’s that important …”

  “I do,” he assured her, and went to her phone. “And I’d like you to change that appointment right now, if you d
on’t mind, so it won’t be weighing on me.” He didn’t have to look up the number, but dialed it from memory. He held out the phone. “You’ll get the switchboard at his hotel. Whatever you do, don’t tell him this was my idea. He’d start moving on it right away. Sometimes I swear I think that redhead can see around corners. I don’t think you’d even better mention you’ve been talking to me.”

  When the hotel clerk answered Rose asked for Mr. Michael Shayne. “Oh?” she said. “Do you know where he can be reached? … I see. Will you see that he gets a message? Ask him to call Mrs. Rose Heminway when he comes in, at this number.”

  She dictated her phone number and gave the phone to Painter, who put it back for her.

  “But don’t count on that message getting to him. Keep trying.” He gave his mustache a quick downward flick, as though to make sure that the hairs were still growing in the right direction. “Hell!”

  “I’m sorry,” she said helplessly. I honestly didn’t expect this to be such a bombshell. At least we’ve disposed of it now. Won’t you change your mind about that drink?”

  “Thank you, Rose. But some other night. I couldn’t relax. If I’m going to beat Shayne to the punch I’d better step things up a bit.”

  She got up. “More mystery, Peter. I hope you really know what you’re doing.”

  “Listen to the twelve o’clock news tomorrow,” he said smugly.

  He started for the door, frowning importantly. Rose had given him a bad moment when she told him about Shayne, but he had hold of himself now. He saw new possibilities, in fact. It would make his triumph that much sweeter. This time, he promised himself, if Shayne tried to stick his nose into something that didn’t concern him, the infuriating private detective who had bested Painter so often would end up flat on his back with a surprised look on his big ugly face.

  And Painter was also enjoying the way Rose was looking at him, puzzled but at the same time respectful. Women seldom looked at him like that, particularly women as good looking as Rose. He didn’t know why this should be so. Somebody had once told him that he would be better off if he could only develop a sense of humor, but just because he happened to believe in taking serious things seriously—