He jerked open the back door and piled Buford onto the seat while Rourke ran around to the front and got in, gunned the motor and pulled away fast without asking questions.
Kneeling on the floor in the rear, Shayne stretched Buford’s limp body out on the back seat, spread his coat open and jerked blood-soaked shirt-tail and undershirt out from under his belt to examine the wound inflicted by his .32 caliber bullet. There was a small hole just left of center leading into the convict’s intestines, and blood was oozing out of it.
Whitey Buford opened his eyes and wet his lips and peered up at the redhead as he pressed a folded handkerchief against the wound, pulled the undershirt down tight over it to hold it in place.
“You’re Shayne,” he said thinly. “The quick-gun Shamus’ Watson figured to hire when he heard I’d busted out and was headed this way.”
Michael Shayne rocked back on his heels and looked down at the escaped felon grimly. “You’ve got a bullet in your guts, Buford. You may live to get the chair and you may not. Want to talk about it?”
“What’s there to talk about? You had all the advantage … waiting for me like that.”
“You had all the advantage in Denham tonight,” Shayne reminded him coldly. “Who were you gunning for … Belle or me?”
“You, goddamn it. Why’d I shoot Belle?”
Shayne said, “That’s one of the things I wondered. You said Watson a moment ago. Didn’t you mean Carson?”
“The sonofabitch was named Watson when he lammed with that fifty grand and left me holding the bag. After setting up the whole caper and talking me into grabbing the kid.”
“Watson?” Shayne repeated the name wonderingly, and then suddenly it hit him and he wondered why he hadn’t realized the truth sooner.
Of course, Banker Carson of Denham was merely the reincarnation of Richard Watson of Atlanta, head bookkeeper for the Barnett Lumber Company, the quiet man who had disappeared so completely after driving away from home at dusk with a shabby suitcase in his car.
It all added up, Shayne realized. The appearance of Walter Carson in Denham a short time later with enough money to buy out the controlling interest in a small country bank.
The ransom money for the Barnett boy which must have been in that suitcase Mr. and Mrs. Pease saw him carry out the back-door.
That was why none of the money had ever been recovered—why Buford had denied receiving any of it. He hadn’t ditched it in Miami, and he hadn’t broken jail and headed for Miami to recover it. Instead, he had broken jail burning with a desire for revenge on the man who had double-crossed him and sent him to jail years before.
Somehow, through underworld connections while inside the penitentiary, he must have learned that Watson was posing as a respectable banker in Denham—and somehow Watson must have been warned that he knew.
So, Belle hadn’t committed bigamy after all. She had merely waited for her legal husband to establish his new identity, followed him to Denham where they had played out the farce of a whirlwind courtship before remarrying.
Whitey Buford groaned and closed his eyes. Little bubbles of spittle formed on his lips. Shayne leaned close and demanded harshly, “Why did you kill Watson last night? To prevent him from coming to me with his proposition for me to hunt you down and kill you before you could expose him?”
Buford’s eyes stayed shut. His lips parted slightly and Shayne had to lean very close to hear the wheezing whisper, “Didn’t kill him. Wanted … my share. Was gonna … collect.…” The voice ended in a sibilant sigh. Shayne bared his wrist and found the pulse. It was slow and somewhat weak, but quite regular.
He lifted his head and looked out the window, saw they were on the Causeway rushing toward Miami Beach at about seventy miles an hour.
Hunched over the steering wheel of the rented car, Rourke saw his head lift in the rear-view mirror, and called over his shoulder cheerfully, “He die on you, Mike?”
“I think he’ll live for the electric chair if we get him to a doctor fast.” Shayne got out a cigarette and slumped down on the floor with his back against one door and his feet against the other.
“Sure you want to go in to Painter, Mike?” Rourke’s voice was sharp with anxiety. “The way we’ve been getting it, he’s got enough on you to put you behind bars for the rest of your life.”
“I want to deliver Whitey Buford to him alive,” said Shayne inflexibly. “And I’ve already given him Carson’s murderer, so he shouldn’t be too tough to handle.”
“Buford didn’t do that job?” Rourke asked incredulously, slowing to a sedate fifty as they neared the Beach end of the Causeway. “I just heard him identifying Carson as Watson. Know what that means, Mike? When I checked into Buford and the kidnapping story this evening, I ran across the name of Watson. Grapevine had it at the time that he was the pay-off man for the ransom money. The money that never was found. If Watson did disappear with the fifty grand and changed his name to Carson.…”
“That’s what he did, Tim. And his wife waited almost a year before following him to Denham and remarrying him under his new identity. I don’t know how she traced him, but the poor devil must have felt like he’d gone from the frying pan into the fire when she traced him to Denham. Pull up close to the side entrance where Doc Crandal has his emergency room,” he directed as they neared the Miami Beach police station. “I don’t want to start arguing with Petey or any of the boys until the doc gets to work on him.”
Rourke pulled into the parking area in rear of the station and passed a dozen police cars to head in toward a door with a nightlight burning over it.
He switched off his motor and headlights, leaped out to help Shayne drag Buford’s unconscious body off the back seat and get it draped over Shayne’s shoulder. Then he hurried ahead of him to open the door, announcing loudly, “Got a customer for you, Doc.”
The small room was brilliantly lit and antiseptically white, equipped with an operating table and emergency equipment, and Doctor Crandal was in an easy chair reading a paper-backed mystery with a bottle of beer close to his right hand.
He got up and yawned when Shayne came through the door and stretched Buford out on the table. “So it’s you, Mike?” he said in a pleased tone. “Mr. Painter will be very happy to know you’re here. And if that’s a stiff you’re stretching out on my table.…”
“He isn’t stiff … yet.” Shayne jerked the undershirt up and displayed the wound. “Just a little thirty-two slug, Doc.”
“U-m-m, yes. But you missed his belly-button, Mike,” he said in a tone of gentle reproof.
Shayne said apologetically, “It was a lousy short-barreled Banker’s Special.” He stepped back toward a door leading into the police station and Timothy Rourke joined him as the doctor examined the wounded man.
“He should be okay,” he said after a time, glancing at the two men with mild curiosity. “I’ll have to tell Painter you’re here, Mike.”
Shayne smiled and said, “I’d rather have the pleasure of telling him myself, Doc. Coming, Tim?”
“God yes. This, I must see.”
Shayne opened the door and they stepped into an empty corridor leading back from the charge room. They turned to the right and went side by side past two closed doors toward an open door on the left that both men knew led into Painter’s private office.
As they approached it, they heard a gruff voice explaining apologetically, “But Shayne had beat it before we got there, Chief. This punk claims he beat him up for no reason at all.”
“That’s one more charge to throw at him.” Painter’s voice was gleeful. “I’ll bet any of you ten bucks that he’s fifty miles from here right now … running like a hound dog with his tail between his legs.”
There were guffaws of pleased laughter from inside the room, and Shayne paused to take out his billfold and extract a ten-dollar bill. Holding it outstretched, he walked into the office and said, “I’ll take that ten dollar bet, Painter.”
18
Though it
was a large corner office it seemed crowded by the six men who gaped at Shayne as he walked through the door. Harvey Barstow was slumped in a chair at the rear; his hair unkempt and a bruise on his sullenly boyish face, and close to him stood a uniformed member of the Denham police force. Chief Painter sat behind the big desk in the center of the room, and on his left were ranged two plainclothes detectives supporting Jeffery Walsh between them.
Painter arose slowly from his swivel chair as Shayne walked up to the desk and laid the bill in front of him. His black eyes glittered with animosity and his slender frame quivered as he said thinly:
“I gave you credit for more sense, Shayne. My God, do you realize the list of charges I’ve got piled up against you since last night?”
“I’ve got a vague idea,” Shayne told him unsmilingly. He put the tip of his forefinger on the bill and pushed it toward Painter. “Pay off on your bet, damn it.”
“Arrest him. Logan,” Painter grated at one of the detectives holding onto Walsh’s arm. “Take him out of here, and by God we’ll see he wishes he had taken it on the run.”
Shayne shook his head reprovingly at the detective who released Walsh’s left arm and started toward him. He said, “Don’t make your boss out a bigger fool than he really is, Logan. If you arrest me now Painter never will solve the Carson killing.”
“Hah!” snorted Painter happily. “Despite all the run-around you tried to give me, Shayne, that’s marked off as a closed case. You probably never even heard of an escaped convict named Whitey Buford … but he’s known to be hiding out in Miami and as soon as we pick him up we’ll prove he killed Carson.”
Shayne said, “Then you’ll appreciate the fact that Doc Crandal is working on Buford right now to see if he can keep him alive.”
“Doc … Crandal?” Painter’s voice thinned still more and the thumb-nail that was caressing his tiny black mustache became suddenly still.
“In his emergency room.” Shayne jerked his thumb casually over his shoulder. “Tim Rourke and I just brought Buford in for you. I had to shoot him in the guts when he pulled this gun on me, but the doc thinks he’ll make it.” He reached in his coat pocket as he spoke and lifted out the .38 automatic that he had taken from Buford’s lax fingers in front of Conway’s Grill.
“What’s he talking about, Rourke?” demanded Painter fiercely of the reporter who had stopped beside Shayne. In a stricken tone, he added, “There must be some mistake. He can’t mean Whitey Buford. The convict that escaped from the Georgia penitentiary a few days ago. The one that kidnapped the Barnett boy.…” His voice trailed off and Rourke shrugged and said:
“I can’t identify him positively, but he sure as hell looks like the picture that was in yesterday’s News.”
“I don’t see.…” sputtered Painter. “How in the living hell, Shayne? Well, so you were lucky and reached Buford through your underworld connections. But don’t get the idea that takes you off the hook,” he went on shrilly. “I don’t care how many ex-cons you bring in dead or alive. Don’t forget I had the Carson case solved before you made your grandstand play … in spite of all the obstructions you placed in my path. Do you deny assaulting Mr. Barstow in Denham tonight?”
Shayne glanced at the bank teller’s twitching face and said mildly, “I don’t deny socking him in the bank after he pulled a gun on me and threatened to have me pinched. Hell, Petey,” he went on earnestly, “for that you should give me a medal. How would you ever have got a line on my pal, Walsh, here.…” He nodded sardonically at the private detective who was still being half-supported by one of the officers, “… if I’d stuck around Denham to let the cops pick me up? Who in hell do you think phoned in the pick-up on Walsh?”
“We know you made that phone call,” conceded Painter. “After slapping him around and knocking him out cold. And he’s admitted blackmailing Carson by keeping quiet about his wife having committed bigamy, but that’s no by God reason for you.…”
“She didn’t,” Shayne interrupted dispassionately.
“Who didn’t? What?” shrilled Painter.
“Belle Carson didn’t commit bigamy when she married Carson.” Shayne lowered one hip to a corner of Painter’s desk and got out a cigarette which he shoved between his lips. “Walsh is not only a stinking blackmailer,” he went on disgustedly, “but he’s also a lousy detective to boot.”
“I swear she never got a divorce from Richard Watson,” Walsh said angrily, straightening himself and glaring at Shayne. “I checked her out all the way. It was bigamy, all right, and I don’t think it’s legally blackmail if there’s a gentleman’s agreement to keep quiet about a thing like that. I want to consult a lawyer,” he ended on a whining note.
“If she didn’t commit bigamy, why did her husband make a monthly pay-off to Walsh?” demanded Painter.
“Because he couldn’t afford to have anyone dig deeper into his past and what went on back in Atlanta. When you said awhile ago that you could prove Whitey Buford killed Carson, what were you basing it on? What connection do you see between Buford and Carson?”
“Carson’s wife is the connection. She was formerly married to a man named Richard Watson in Atlanta … who was the pay-off man in a kidnapping engineered by Buford. Buford has always sworn he never got the money, and I figure Belle Carson was afraid he would be coming after her for revenge when she heard he’d broken jail. So she told her husband the whole story, and he came to Miami intending to see you and hire you to take care of Buford for him. But I also figure he was fool enough to contact Buford last night and threaten him with your gun. How else would Buford have known where to find him at eleven o’clock?”
“I don’t think Buford did know. I doubt that he would have killed Carson if he had known. Because he wanted that fifty-thousand Carson had held out on him years ago.”
“You mean Watson, don’t you?”
“Haven’t you got the set-up yet?” asked Shayne impatiently. “I told you Belle didn’t commit bigamy. Carson was Watson. Buford knew it, and he was out to collect the money. He had no motive for killing Carson.”
“Who did, then?” asked Painter uncertainly.
“I thought you’d like Walsh for it. He had both motive and opportunity. He admitted to me that Carson phoned him last evening and said he was having dinner at Chez Dumont and would be leaving at eleven to walk the few blocks to Walsh’s place.”
“He’s twisting it all up,” whined Walsh. “Sure he had a date to come to my apartment, but it was to talk over a big pay-off. I didn’t want him dead.”
“That’s what you say,” snarled Painter. “How do we know he wasn’t tired of playing blackmail and had threatened to expose you if you didn’t lay off? After all, you are the only man in Miami who could place him with certainty at that place and that time. He was killed with a thirty-two. What caliber gun you got a license for? And where is it?”
“A thirty-two,” Walsh admited. “But I haven’t even got it now. I pawned it six months ago for eating money when things were tough all over.”
“You’ll have to prove it,” Painter said uncompromisingly. “But don’t think any of this takes you off the hook, Shayne. I’ve got about a dozen charges against you, starting with obstruction of justice and ending up with a charge of assault that Mr. Barstow has already sworn out against you.”
“He pulled a gun on me before I hit him,” Shayne said mildly.
“Strictly in line of duty,” Peter Painter told him happily. “You were trespassing, had forced your way into the bank, and he knew you were a fugitive with a warrant out for your arrest. As an officer of the bank, he has a permit for the gun you claim he ‘pulled’ on you, and he was doing his duty as a citizen when he attempted to hold you there while he called the police. You’re going to have one hell of a time wriggling out of that.”
Shayne grinned wryly and said, “Maybe. On the other hand, I figured it was a pretty good way to get him here in Miami tonight.”
He reached in his pocket and pulled out the seco
nd gun … the short-barreled .32 he had taken from Barstow in the bank. He laid it on the desk beside Buford’s automatic. “This the one he claims to have a permit for?”
“Is it, Mr. Barstow?” Painter turned encouragingly to the bank teller and he said, “I guess so. One just like that anyway. There were three of them that belonged to the bank. I haven’t a list of the serial numbers, but they’re on file.”
“I’m certainly not denying that this is the one I took away from Barstow. But before you put me in your jail, Petey, I suggest you do one thing. Have Ballistics check the bullet you took out of Carson with this gun.”
“You mean the bank’s thirty-two?” asked Painter incredulously, staring at both guns with narrowed eyes.
“Carson was shot with a thirty-two, wasn’t he?”
“Yes, but … are you implying …?”
“I’m not implying anything,” said Shayne flatly. “I’m telling you that Harvey Barstow killed Carson last night with that gun. Or one of the other similar guns in the bank that he had access to.”
“Barstow? But.…”
“That’s crazy!” Barstow surged to his feet angrily. “I wasn’t even in Miami last night. I was at home in bed. I had no reason to kill Mr. Carson.”
“Belle Carson tells it differently,” growled Shayne. “You knew Carson was coming in to consult a private detective, but you didn’t know why. You admit you typed the letter making the appointment with me.”
“But I didn’t know why. He didn’t tell me.…”
“That’s exactly it,” agreed Shayne. “You knew nothing about Whitey Buford or any of the Atlanta background. So your guilty conscience led you to believe Carson suspected your affair with his wife and that he was hiring me to get the evidence. So you followed him in to the city and gunned him on the street before he could keep his appointment with me this morning.”
Murder and the Wanton Bride Page 14