Murder by Proxy ms-42

by Brett Halliday

  Shayne listened alertly while Blake retold his story of the evening in a straightforward and terse manner. The only thing he left out that Shayne could ascertain, was any mention of his arrangement with Willy Arentz to steer customers into the Gray Gull.

  Painter heard him out without comment while the statement was taken down in shorthand. Then he questioned him closely about the man whom Blake claimed he had last seen with Ellen, without eliciting any more detailed description than Shayne had gotten. Painter was withering in his demands for details about the subsequent sleeping arrangements between Blake and Peggy, and his contempt for the woman showed through clearly when he began questioning her.

  She answered his biting questions with composure, making it very clear that she did not consider her personal life any of his damn business, stating for the record that her name was Margaret Gold, that she was a divorcee living on alimony payments from her ex-husband who was a businessman in Baltimore. She had been in Miami Beach at the Fontainebleau for three days, she said, before meeting Gene, and had checked out Tuesday afternoon to move into the Seaspray with him as Mr. and Mrs. Blake. Her version of the evening at the Gray Gull was the same as she had given Shayne. She hadn’t really noticed the man who was with Ellen.

  Painter gave a grunt of disgust when she finished, and told them both, “Remain in the outer room while we have these statements typed. Then you will be required to sign them under oath.”

  “Can we go then, Chief?” asked Blake hopefully.

  “Back to your hotel bedroom for more fun and games?” snarled Painter. “I don’t know. There’s a law about that. I’ll decide later. Go in there and wait until you’re called.”

  When they had gone out and the stenographer had departed to transcribe his notes, Painter took notice of the detective again. “Any discrepancies in their stories?”

  Shayne shook his head. “Just the way they told it to me.”

  Painter smoothed his mustache with a thumbnail and purred in a voice that dripped malice, “I can’t see this helps us any. It simply makes it more apparent than ever that Mrs. Harris came down here with hot pants, ready to take on the first man she could pick up. This Blake didn’t suit her taste, so she grabbed the next one.”

  Shayne said, “Maybe. Maybe not.” He stood up and stretched. “You can’t say I didn’t cooperate this time, Painter. I hope you’ll do the same if you get anything.”

  Before Painter could reply, there was a light rap on the outer door and a detective entered carrying a copy of the first edition of the News. “You seen this story, Chief?”

  He hurried forward and spread the newspaper out in front of Painter. From where he stood Shayne could see a large picture of Ellen Harris reproduced on the front page.

  He edged toward the door and had his hand on the knob when Painter called to him in an infuriated voice, “Shayne! Now, by God to hell…”

  Shayne kept on going and pulled the door tightly shut behind him. He went out a side exit and circled around to his parked car, got in it and drove away.

  Before deciding what his next logical step should be, he stopped to telephone Lucy Hamilton and asked if Jim Gifford had called from New York.

  “Not yet,” she told him excitedly. “But Tim Rourke just hung up the phone. The paper’s only been out half an hour and they’ve already found Mrs. Harris’ car. Parked right there in the Beachhaven parking lot. Tim’s on his way there now.”

  Shayne said, “So am I, angel. Stand by for Gifford’s call, huh?” He hurried out to head for the Beachhaven.

  12

  When Michael Shayne reached the Beachhaven parking lot, he found Robert Merrill at the entrance with a young man whom he told Shayne was the attendant on duty until six o’clock. “Ed called the News first and then told me,” he explained. “I guess you know they offered a fifty-dollar reward for information about the car, and, as soon as Ed read the description, he realized there was a similar convertible that had been parked here several days, and he checked the license number. I called the police,” Merrill added, “and the rental people to send up an extra set of keys. It’s right over there… locked up tight. Hell of a thing, isn’t it? Right here in our lot all the time.”

  “Been sitting here ever since Monday?” Shayne asked the lad.

  “I don’t know for sure. I just happened to notice it standing there, you know, without really noticing. I couldn’t say when, or whether it’s been there all the time or not. But I know I haven’t seen it go in or out.”

  “There’s no one on duty from six at night until eight in the morning,” Merrill explained. “If a guest wants to use his car, a bellboy will bring it around or he can take it in or out himself.”

  Timothy Rourke’s shabby sedan pulled up just then, and the reporter climbed out with a wide grin. “The power of the press, huh?” he greeted Shayne and Merrill. “And a fifty-buck reward.” He had brought a photographer with him, and he added briskly, “I’d like a shot before Painter gets here. You the one called in the tip?” he asked the attendant.

  “Yes sir. Ed Beagle’s my name.”

  “I’m Rourke from the News.” He shook the lad’s hand heartily. “Which one is it? How about a picture of you standing behind it pointing to the license number for the paper?”

  “Sure. That’s it, right there.” Ed pointed to the cream-colored Pontiac convertible across the lot with its top up now.

  Rourke took him by the arm and led him across to pose him behind the car, and Shayne drifted away behind them as Painter’s car came up fast, leaving Merrill to explain things to the detective chief.

  Shayne peered through the windows for a look inside without seeing anything at all while Rourke secured a couple of pictures, and then he circled around the car and stopped suddenly, wrinkling his nose as a faint breeze came to him from the direction of the car. He glanced over his shoulder and saw Painter and Merrill beginning to walk toward them, and he went quickly to Rourke and said in a low voice, “Have your photographer standing by to get a fast shot of the interior of the trunk when the keys get here. Painter won’t like it, but you found the car.”

  “My God,” said Rourke. “What makes you think…”

  Shayne said, “Take a smell for yourself. Four or five days in the sun…” He broke off and strolled away as Painter came up and demanded of Ed Beagle, “You the one reported the car? Why didn’t you call the police instead of the newspaper?”

  “It was the paper that offered the reward,” Beagle told him stoutly.

  “Been here all the time, eh, and you didn’t even notice it until a reward was offered? Or were you keeping it under your hat hoping there would be a reward?” The lad shuffled his feet nervously and looked to Merrill for support. “I’m not supposed to report cars in the lot if they’ve got a hotel sticker on them. It wasn’t that I really noticed it. Not until I read the paper and got to thinking…

  Painter turned away with a snort of disgust as another police car rolled up and two uniformed technicians got out. “Try the door handles for fingerprints outside. You say they’re bringing extra keys?” he added to Merrill.

  “The Avis people. They should be here any minute.”

  “Has Harris been notified?” Shayne asked him.

  “How’d you get here so fast, Shayne?” demanded Painter. “Is this some kind of put up job between you and Rourke? Why did you hurry out of my office as soon as you knew the News was out? Came straight here, didn’t you?”

  “After phoning my secretary and getting Tim’s message,” Shayne told him. “Has he, Merrill?”

  “Harris? No. He should be, I guess. Ed, go ring the doorman and ask Mr. Harris to come out here.”

  While the boy trotted away to the telephone that connected him with the doorman, a U-Drive-It pickup truck drew up and a man in white coveralls got out. “You need some keys for a Pontiac here?”

  “Right here, fellow,” Painter said officiously. He went toward the convertible, warning, “Just unlock the doors without touching
any surface. Do you have a mileage record on it?”

  “Yeh. When it went out Monday.”

  Shayne moved back to stand beside Timothy Rourke while the mechanic unlocked the right-hand door without touching the handle and then went around to the driver’s side.

  Rourke stood at the rear of the car tensely beside his photographer. He muttered, “Damn if I don’t believe you’re right, Mike. Can you get them to unlock the trunk?”

  Shayne went to the Beach fingerprint man who was standing beside Painter, waiting to get at the interior of the car, and asked him casually, “Did you check the handle of the trunk? It should be opened, too.”

  “Yes,” Painter said instantly. “Check it if you haven’t.” And to the mechanic, he ordered, “Open up the back, too, while you’re about it.”

  The fingerprint man dusted the trunk handle for fingerprints with negative results, and stepped back. The News photographer had his camera up and ready when the mechanic unlocked the trunk and lifted it, stepping back quickly with a startled oath as the odor of putrefied flesh rushed out of confinement and assailed his nostrils.

  The alert photographer got his picture all right… of the body of a woman cramped up in the confines of the trunk on her back with knees drawn up to her breasts.

  With the exception of the mechanic, every man there was more or less inured to the sight of violent death, but this was one of the most gruesome sights any of them had ever experienced.

  They all stood well back from the car, grim-faced and staring, while the locked-in odor was absorbed and carried away by the fresh breeze.

  The dead woman wore a red cocktail dress, the hem of which was up around her waist, displaying long and well-fleshed legs. She was also a blonde.

  That’s about all any of them could tell about her at this point. Her face had been brutally smashed in so that she was totally unrecognizable. Before death, she might well have been as beautiful as the picture of Ellen Harris showed her to be… or she might have been so ugly that no man would look at her twice.

  There simply was no way of telling at this point.

  Shayne heard running footsteps behind him, and turned his head to see Herbert Harris trotting toward them across the parking lot. The New Yorker’s face was ashen and his tie was askew. Shayne breathed an oath deep in his throat and moved to meet the man and slow him down, grasping his arm tightly.

  “They found her car?” Harris panted. His frightened gaze was on the open trunk, the half dozen men standing in a semi-circle around it. “My God, Shayne…”

  “I’m afraid we’ve found her, too, Mr. Harris.” Shayne’s fingers gripped his arm tightly and he hated his job at that moment. “Take it easy,” he cautioned, leading the man forward. “You can make an identification later. Right now…”

  “Oh, my God,” moaned Harris as he saw what was inside the trunk of the convertible. He leaned against Shayne and a small whiff of the smell came to his nostrils, and he was unashamedly sick on the ground while Shayne supported his retching body with a big arm about him.

  “Is that Ellen?” He kept his eyes tightly closed and leaned against Shayne. “Is that… my wife?” he went on shudderingly.

  Shayne turned him aside, saying harshly, “We don’t know yet. Probably. Go ahead and be sick,” he went on in the same harsh voice. “Later on we’ll have to try and get a positive identification.”

  “I’m all right,” Harris sobbed, retching again, but straightening himself and drawing away from Shayne.

  Peter Painter marched up officiously and demanded, “Is that your wife, Harris? Do you recognize her?”

  “Who could… recognize her?” Harris cried out in an anguished voice. “Could you recognize your wife if she looked like that?” He covered his face with his hands and his knees buckled beneath him.

  Shayne lowered his shaking body gently to the ground and said wonderingly, “For God’s sake, Petey. Let the guy be for now. You can get your identification later.” He jerked his head at Merrill and said, “Help me get him back to his room and get a doctor for him.”

  13

  An hour later Michael Shayne and Timothy Rourke sat side by side on the sofa in Lucy Hamilton’s apartment, still waiting for a telephone call from Jim Gifford in New York. Lucy had efficiently served them drinks, and she was warming up some food in the oven in the kitchen, and now she sat across from the pair in a deep chair with her stockinged feet tucked up under her, and asked wonderingly, “Are you telling me, Michael, that they’re still not sure the woman in the automobile trunk is Mrs. Harris?” Shayne clawed at his unruly, red hair, and said, “Sure is a pretty positive word, Lucy. How can they be? Nobody can possibly identify a faceless woman. Of course, everything points to the body being Mrs. Harris. But that’s what bothers me. Whenever I see a corpse beaten up beyond recognition, discovered under circumstances where everything outwardly points to it being a particular person… I wonder if it was planned that way. To make us think it’s Mrs. Harris when it isn’t.”

  “You’re jumping to conclusions, Mike,” Rourke warned him. “The rented car had been driven only forty-two miles. We know Mrs. Harris went for a drive before she came back to the Beachhaven at seven to pick up Gene Blake. The car must have been sitting in that lot since late Monday night. You know, the M.E. said she had been placed in the trunk of the car within a few hours after her death… before real rigor mortis had set in. And he placed the time as Monday or Tuesday night at the latest… judging by the amount of decomposition. She’s been missing since then. Who else could it be?”

  Shayne growled. “I know all that. But why was her face and head so senselessly beaten into a pulp? I still don’t like it,” he said flatly.

  “Can’t they tell by her fingerprints?” Lucy asked brightly.

  “Painter will do that,” conceded Shayne. “He’s thorough when it comes to routine police procedure… and he doesn’t jump to conclusions no matter what else you say about him. He questioned Harris about any official record of her prints before we took the poor devil back to the hotel and got him a doctor and a sedative, and when Harris insisted his wife’s prints weren’t on record, he was quick enough to get the address of their New York apartment. If I know Petey as well as I think I do, he’ll have a set of the dead woman’s prints in New York tomorrow morning to be checked against those in the Harris apartment. Then we’ll be sure. But, until then, I’m still going to wonder why she was beaten so as to be unidentifiable.” He emptied his glass of cognac and Lucy jumped up to refill it.

  “Somehow,” she said thoughtfully, “thinking about poor Mr. Harris in the office this morning, I think maybe this is easier on him than the other would have been. You know what I mean, Michael… if Painter had been right and it was just a matter of her sleeping out for a few nights.”

  Shayne nodded and agreed. “You never know which is worse for the survivor in a case like that. At the same time, now that she’s dead, the whole tawdry story is going to come out. Everything I found out about her today indicates that she was just about the opposite of what her husband believed her to be. Instead of an ever-loving wife, the picture we get of her here in Miami is a sexy floozie who was ready to take up with the first man that looked at her. Herbert Harris is going to have to live with that knowledge for the rest of his life.”

  Lucy Hamilton’s telephone rang as he finished. She padded across to answer it, and said, “Mr. Shayne is right here waiting for your call, Mr. Gifford.” She held the instrument out to her employer.

  Shayne took it and said, “Hi, Jim.”

  “Mike. I’m sorry to call so late, but I’ve been getting around. It’s a Saturday, you know, and people are hard to catch up with.”

  “What have you got?”

  “Just about negative, Mike. Nothing that I assume you hoped I’d get on Ellen Harris. All the dope I can gather here points her up as a plenty beautiful doll, but strictly on the up and up. I contacted a couple of models she knew before she married Harris, and they swear she never playe
d around. Seems like she fell for him hard, and he was her one and only. Same dope from those who knew her after she was married. Strictly a one-man gal, and happy and contented with what she had. Seems they weren’t too social, but in a small circle of friends they were regarded as a veddy, veddy happily married couple. I’ve got a hunch that isn’t what you wanted, but that’s all yours truly turned up with a lot of leg-work today. Is the lady still among the missing?”

  Shayne said, “No. We found her about an hour ago, Jim. Dead.”

  Jim Gifford said, “Oh?” very thoughtfully.

  “So here’s some more leg-work, Jim. I don’t know how much you can accomplish on a Sunday, but this time concentrate on Herbert Harris. His wife reached here by plane Monday afternoon and was probably killed late that night. Find out where he was Monday night. Check his personal life.”

  “Like that, huh?”

  Shayne said sharply, “It’s always like that when a married woman gets bumped off. The guy that did this job, by the way, wasn’t satisfied with just killing her. He frenziedly beat her beautiful face into a pulp just for the hell of it. That puts it close to home in my book.”

  Gifford said, “Yeh. I’ll dig what I can, Mike.”

  “You’ve got my apartment number… and Lucy’s,” Shayne told him. “One of us will be home tomorrow.”

  “Yeh. Give Lucy my dearest love.” Gifford chuckled. “What’s she cooking up for dinner tonight?”

  Shayne frowned at the telephone. “Whatever gives you that idea?”

  Jim Gifford chuckled again. “I can smell it all the way up here over the telephone. Poor Boy Steak, huh? Remember that time she cooked it for us? Must have been five years ago, but I can still taste that garlic sauce. Tell her so, Mike. ’Bye.” And he hung up.

  Shayne turned away from the telephone shaking his head. “You did say you were warming something in the oven for dinner, Lucy? What is it?”

  “Some left-over porkchops, Michael. I’m going to make a garlic sauce to go with them… whatever are you laughing about?” she ended indignantly.