Counterfeit Wife ms-14

by Brett Halliday

  “I wheedled it out of Gerta,” Shayne told him. “She happened to be in the mood to talk.”

  There was a hint of humor in Gentry’s bloodshot eyes. “Seems to me,” he said, “you’re hinting that Gurney wasn’t the actual kidnaper. That he was fronting for someone else.”

  “Let’s put it like this, Will,” said Shayne eagerly. “When Gurney told Gerta about the Deland girl, he assured her it was a cinch. That they had nothing to worry about. I suggest it was a hell of a lot more than a simple kidnaping. Gurney was being used by someone.”

  “By whom? And for what?”

  Shayne worried his ear lobe with a thumb and forefinger. “I don’t know. How does Emory Hale strike you, Will?”

  “I only saw him for a few minutes last night.”

  “What time?”

  “It must have been between two-thirty and three. After I talked to you on the phone, and before Tim called me about the body up in your apartment. He came into my office raving about wanting justice done and how he had put up reward money himself. He threatened to tear the town wide open with his bare hands if the kidnapers weren’t caught and properly dealt with. He’d been drinking some, but he isn’t the type that liquor affects much.”

  Shayne nodded absently. “I understand both Hale and Deland left the house soon after they got the report on Kathleen’s death. Do you know where either of them went?”

  “Damn it, Mike, how should I know? Why do you always get me involved in these Beach cases with Painter? Slocum and Gurney-and the Negro over here in my territory-and the kidnap-murder on Painter’s side of the causeway?”

  “But you did see Hale,” Shayne said.

  “I guess he was making the rounds with some fool idea of picking up a clue on his own. Maybe Deland was trying to catch up with him like the newspaper said-to keep him out of trouble.”

  “What sort of trouble?”

  “Hale didn’t talk much to me. But I got the impression he knows, or has known, his way around with the tough boys. Maybe not in Miami, but he knows the ropes.”

  “Is he legitimate now?”

  “That’s hard to say. He’s smooth. I’d guess he came up the hard way. I wouldn’t want to buck him in a business deal.”

  “What is his business?” Shayne’s gray eyes were alert.

  “I don’t know.” Gentry waved a pudgy hand vaguely. “The newspapers call him a financier and sportsman.”

  “Sure,” Shayne scoffed. “Any punk who pays income tax and lays a few bucks on the fillies is a financier and sportsman. I’d like to know how he makes his money. The sort of gang he runs with. Everything about him.”

  “You don’t think he engineered the kidnaping of his own niece?” protested Gentry.

  “Somebody did. Have you a list of the serial numbers on the ransom money Hale gave Painter?”

  “Right here.” Gentry produced a mimeographed list and handed it across the table. “Painter had hundreds of copies knocked out last night.”

  Shayne took the list and scowled over it, running his gaze swiftly down the list of numbers. It looked exactly like what it was purported to be-a list of five hundred bills picked at random out of the vaults of any bank. He asked, “Do you know the name of Emory Hale’s New York bank?”

  “No, I don’t. But what does it matter?”

  Shayne said slowly, “I don’t know, Will. I wish you’d find out. Then wire the bank and learn whether they gave him the money and this list.”

  Gentry leaned back unsmiling. He moved his head slowly from side to side. “I’m not stooging for you unless you come clean, Mike. How did you get in the middle of it?”

  “Remember what I told you this morning on the phone?”

  “You told me lots of things,” Gentry growled.

  “One of them was that if I told you the truth you’d have no recourse except to turn me over to Painter for free lodging.”

  Gentry leaned forward and asked, “Were you riding with Gerta Ross when she crashed her car last night?”

  “Painter himself proved I was in Palm Beach while that was going on,” Shayne answered evenly.

  Gentry nodded. “And while the black boy was getting himself killed in a basement garage on Thirty-eighth Street.”

  “One piece of advice I’ll hand you on a platter,” Shayne told him, dragging himself to a straight position. “Don’t waste any time looking for the hijackers who held Dawson up.”

  “Like that, huh? What would you advise me to concentrate on, Mike?”

  “Checking any connection Dawson or Deland or Hale might ever have had with counterfeit money, with Fred Gurney, with the Fun Club on Thirty-sixth Street, or with ex-Senator Irvin, alias Greerson, who lived on Thirty-eighth Street until the house burned down last night.”

  Gentry was jotting notations on a sheet of paper. “It would help a lot,” he complained, “if I knew why you want to know those things.”

  Shayne said, “Fred Gurney didn’t plan and carry out that kidnaping all by himself.”

  “There’s another queer angle to that kidnaping you haven’t mentioned,” grumbled Gentry.

  “Do you mean why Kathleen Deland was chosen as the victim?”

  “Sure. Anyone who knew anything about the Delands would know it was preposterous to expect them to pay a fifty grand ransom for the girl.”

  “Unless it was someone who knew them intimately enough to know about the rich brother-in-law and uncle in New York.”

  “Even a rich uncle,” Gentry dissented, “isn’t always the type to shell out that kind of money.”

  “That’s right,” said Shayne blandly. “It must have been engineered by someone close enough to know about Hale’s love for his sister and her daughter, and the fact that he was the sort of uncle who had shelled out before.”

  Gentry doodled on the sheet of paper. “Dawson?” he asked.

  Shayne shrugged. “He’d be in a position to know those facts. Add that to his fake story of being hijacked last night and see if it doesn’t make it worth while to keep an eye on him.”

  “That’s the second time you’ve spoken of fake hijackers. What gives you that idea?”

  Shayne started to grin, but stopped in time to prevent splitting his lip wound. “It isn’t an idea. It’s not even a hunch. I know Dawson’s whole story was a lie.”

  The horizontal creases in Gentry’s forehead deepened, the puffy flesh between the lines paling from their natural ruddiness. “According to Doc Thompson on the Beach, Dawson’s head injury wasn’t faked. He says it couldn’t possibly have been self-inflicted.”

  Shayne thought that over for a moment, trying to fit it into the hazy picture his mind was forming. “Exactly what time did Dawson check in at the Beach?”

  “Around three-thirty. I can find out, if it’s important.”

  “It may not be. What’s the best you can do on Gurney’s death?”

  “Between two and four-thirty. The call to Rourke came a few minutes before five o’clock.”

  “It was four-twenty-eight when I found him dead. He hadn’t been dead more than an hour. I’d guess thirty minutes. Do you know of any other callers for him at the Tower Cottages except the big redheaded guy you mentioned?”

  “Not in person. The old man out there says there was a phone call at about two-thirty. Someone asked if Fred Smith had checked in and what his cabin number was.”

  “Whoever made that call was Gurney’s murderer,” Shayne declared. “Here’s what actually happened last night, Will. I’ll give it to you straight-as much of it as I can right now-if you won’t ask any questions.”

  Gentry said, “Give it to me.”

  “Gurney and the Ross woman were badly worried when the pay-off didn’t materialize. They hung around a joint between twelve-thirty and one while Gurney tried to reach someone by telephone. Gerta Ross left him there while she went out and smashed up her car. He received a call some time after one o’clock, then called her at home to tell her he was meeting someone at the Tower Cottages for
the pay-off and that he would register as Fred Smith. Whoever made that date with him called up later to get his cabin number, went out and slid a bone-handled hunting knife in his back.

  “The only person who had any motive for that,” Shayne went on slowly, thinking things out as he spoke, “is the unknown person who hired Gurney to pull the job. With the girl dead, he was in a very bad spot. Accused of murder, Gurney wasn’t the courageous type to cover up for him. So Gurney had to be wiped out fast.”

  “Dawson?” Will Gentry was doodling furiously. “If you’re sure he kept that fifty grand instead of losing it to hijackers, it begins to add up. He knew all about Emory Hale. By having himself appointed go-between, he had a beautiful chance simply to keep the money, claiming he’d turned it over to the kidnapers. But why didn’t he do just that, Mike? If Dawson planned it that way, all he had to do was meet Gurney and Ross as planned, get the girl from them and take her home.”

  “It could be a slight case of double-cross,” suggested Shayne. “He must have agreed to give Gurney a fair split of the money. Suppose he just decided to keep it all for himself? How does that work out?”

  A heavy silence lay between them for a long moment. Gentry dropped his pencil and folded his hands on the desk. Shayne put his head back and blew clouds of smoke toward the ceiling.

  “In that case,” Gentry conceded presently, “Dawson might have thought a fake hijacking was smart. Knowing Gurney to be weak, he might’ve trusted the guy to turn Kathleen loose unharmed and say no more about it after he found out the deal was off.”

  “I think, if I’d been Dawson,” Shayne muttered, clearly envisioning the pasty-faced little man, “I would have tried to jump town with the money.”

  “But we know Dawson didn’t do that,” said Gentry. “I imagine he felt he was safe until he learned the girl was dead and we were on the trail of the kidnapers. Then he had to put Gurney out of the way before he was caught and started talking. That might even explain the blow on his head. Maybe Gurney socked him once before Dawson could use the knife.”

  Shayne shook his head slowly, recalling the knife in Gurney’s back. “I don’t know. It’s a fair theory, but it leaves a hell of a lot of things unexplained.”

  “Such as Slocum and the dead Negro and the fire,” Gentry agreed. “And most of all, how do you know so much when you were flying to Palm Beach and hitchhiking back?”

  Shayne grinned at him and moved toward the door. He said quietly, “And how come the ransom pay-off was in counterfeit bills?” He went out quickly before the Chief could recover from his consternation and question him further.

  Chapter Sixteen

  TWO LINKS IN A CHAIN

  Papa La Tour’s Rest Home was on the bay-front, north of 20th Street. It was factitiously known to the authorities as a rest home because of Papa’s well-known and strictly enforced rule that none of his guests should engage in any of their various professions while residing there. It was comfortable and pleasant, a place to lie low and relax between jobs; a place where old friends could meet again and hobnob while planning new ventures in the world of crime.

  The place had never been raided by the police, and, in return for this unofficial immunity, Papa La Tour had, on several occasions, given the authorities valuable information concerning some of the more unsavory characters who had sought protection there, which resulted in their arrest later on when Papa could not possibly be implicated.

  As a consequence, the old gentleman basked in the trust of his well-paying guests, and in the confidence of the law-enforcing agents in Miami.

  Papa La Tour had his own set of standards, a personal code of morals which had nothing whatever to do with legal definitions.

  In his day, he had been the soup man for a mob of very successful safe-crackers who had operated for years through the Middle Atlantic states, saving their swag after each perfectly planned and masterfully executed job until enough years had passed to make each member financially independent and able to lead a more genteel and certainly a much safer life.

  Papa La Tour had invested his own nest egg in a huge, rambling old house in Miami after the boom-bubble had burst and left the get-rich-quick guys holding the proverbial bag. It eventually paid him big dividends in the high rates he charged for the elaborate recreation facilities and other special services he offered.

  The guests who were welcome at the rest home were those he defined as “honest criminals.” Papa’s idea of an honest criminal was, basically, one who pitted his wits against the world; who stole from corporations rather than individuals; whose activities caused no havoc in personal lives.

  It was, in Papa’s estimation, perfectly all right to rub out a cop, if the officer got in the way of one who was legitimately pursuing his criminal way, but downright indecent and shocking for a crook to do his job so amateurishly as to disturb the victim and be forced to commit bodily harm in order to escape.

  Thus, Papa La Tour did not appear in the least surprised to see Michael Shayne in his private office the morning after the Kathleen Deland kidnaping. His head was big, and bushy with white hair that stood up stiffly. He had a round belly that bulged just below his long torso and just above his short legs. His blue eyes twinkled with a tranquil enjoyment of life, his own portion of it in particular.

  Shayne said, “I hear you’ve been putting Fred Gurney up here.”

  “That lousy punk,” he wheezed, sinking into a chair. “Sit down, Mike. Who’d have guessed he’d pull a dirty one like that? Living right here at my place while he had a little girl staked out. Do you think it’d be fitting if I sent a wreath to the funeral?”

  Shayne didn’t smile at the suggestion. He eased himself into a chair opposite his host and nodded. “I think a wreath would be in order. You could put in a card reading, ‘From a friend.’”

  “Thanks, Mike. That’s a clever idea. I feel mighty bad about it. Sort of responsible. But I swear I didn’t know what was in Fred’s mind.”

  “Sure, I know it. No one blames you, Papa. Fred was always just a cheap punk, with no real harm in him.”

  “That’s the way I looked at it. Who’d have thought he’d pull a job like that?”

  “That’s what I’m wondering.” Shayne hitched his chair closer and lowered his voice to a confidential tone. “I’m guessing someone put him up to it.”

  “None of the boys here. None of them. I swear it.”

  “I don’t mean that, Papa. But you and I know Fred wouldn’t figure out a deal like that on his own.”

  “That’s right, Mike. Fred’s too dumb. That’s what he is-dumb.”

  “Do you know what Fred’s been doing and who he’s been hanging around with lately?” Shayne asked.

  Papa La Tour rubbed his plump chin with a plump hand. “Not much going on this time of year. I guess maybe he hustled for a couple of doctors when a girl, say, was in trouble. I never could see how that was bad, Mike. Sometimes a girl needs help.”

  He thought for a moment, then said, “I wouldn’t know any more about it than I’ve told you. You know I don’t meddle. Is Gerta Ross in the kidnaping with Fred, like the newspapers say?”

  Shayne nodded. “Innocently, maybe. She claims Fred brought Kathleen Deland to her, said she needed an operation, and asked her to keep the girl doped a couple of days. Fred admitted it was a snatch, after she was in too deep to get out.”

  “There was a man here last night asking for Fred Gurney,” La Tour said. “I looked at all them pictures in the paper this morning. I don’t know for sure. This fella was excited or maybe sort of drunk. He favored one of the pictures in the paper. Just favored it, understand. I wouldn’t swear ’twas him.”

  “Which one?”

  “The girl’s father, Mike. Arthur Deland, it says his name is in the paper.”

  Shayne drew in a long breath. “Arthur Deland was here last night? Asking for Fred Gurney?”

  “Early this morning it was. Fellow in my business don’t get much sleep. Never know when somebody’s going
to pop up and ask questions. I didn’t know the man and he didn’t say his name. I didn’t know anything about this other then, neither. Claimed he was a friend of Fred’s, and I says, ‘Maybe-just maybe-you’ll find Fred at the Fun Club,’ and he went away.”

  “What time was that?”

  “A little after two o’clock.”

  “Ever see him around here before?”

  “Never did.”

  “Ever hear Fred Gurney mention Deland’s name or anything connected with him?” Shayne persisted.

  Papa La Tour shook his white shock of hair decidedly. “Not that I passed much talk with Fred,” he added. “Paid his money and I let him stay around. That’s about the way it was with Fred and me.”

  Shayne stood up, thanked him, and went out a side door and down a private walk shaded by an arbor of purple bougainvillea intermingled with brilliant blossoms of flame-vine climbing over the lattice.

  He got in the sedan and sat behind the wheel while he tried to digest the fact he had just learned.

  What did Arthur Deland’s attempt to see Fred Gurney mean? Had Deland suspected all along that Gurney was the kidnaper, and had he concealed the truth from the police for private reasons? It was inconceivable that a man who loved his family as Rourke had reported Deland loved his could have had any part in the tragedy that had befallen his sixteen-year-old daughter.

  Shayne, however, had seen too many inconceivable things turn out to be true to reject the idea completely. He frowned angrily, trying to fit the possibility into the kidnap pattern.

  First, there was the undeniable fact that the ransom money had not come from Deland himself. It had been furnished by his brother-in-law, Emory Hale. That was one way of extracting money from a wealthy relative. On the other hand, Rourke had intimated that Emory Hale had been generous with his sister, Minerva, and had helped her financially in the past. Deland’s financial standing would bear investigation, Shayne decided-a close checkup to determine whether he had any pressing need for so large a sum.

  Second, if Deland had engineered the kidnaping, why had he taken Dawson in as his accomplice? It was evident that Dawson must have been an accomplice, else it would have been foolish to trust the ransom pay-off to him. An accomplice only meant added risk and the need to split the proceeds further. And if Dawson were an accomplice, had the midnight getaway on the plane with the cash been planned?