Killers from the Keys

by Brett Halliday

  Shayne said placidly, “I’m ’way ahead of you on him. I found the guy.”

  “You what? Oh, hell, I might’ve known. An anonymous telephone call they said. All right. Trump this one too. Go on and tell me you found Shephard also.”

  “Shephard?” Shayne didn’t try to keep the astonishment out of his voice.

  “I just got the flash from headquarters and I’m on my way out.”

  “Where?”

  “About two miles west of the Bright Spot on the Trail. He got it just like McTige, Mike. A conch shell into his temple.”

  Shayne said, “I’ll see you,” and pronged the instrument. He turned, tossing off the rest of the cognac, and met Lucy’s anxious eyes.

  “Shephard is dead, too. That makes three in one evening, angel. Two of them with a conch shell, according to Tim. Put the chain on your door.” He was on his way out as he finished.

  17

  SHAYNE HAD NO TROUBLE locating the murder scene. Driving west on Tamiami Trail, he saw a collection of headlights and several flashing red lights of police cars in a cluster on the right side of the highway leading through the Everglades to Florida’s west coast, and he slowed down to pull off the pavement behind the other parked cars.

  Walking forward, he passed Timothy Rourke’s shabby old sedan and Will Gentry’s official car, and beyond there was a culvert with a tall, lone pine standing as a sentinel just beyond it. The Trail was built on about four feet of fill at this point. Beyond the culvert there was a group of men standing around in a circle about the corpse of Steven Shephard brilliantly lighted by spotlights focussed on it from two police cars parked on the edge of the pavement above.

  Shayne stopped and looked down at the macabre, floodlighted, midnight scene. The dead man lay on his back. He wore a conservative sport jacket and white shirt with a neat bow tie beneath his chin. His brown hair was thinning in front, and his upper lip wore the mustache Sloe Burn had described to Shayne that afternoon. From this distance and this angle, Shayne could see no wound that had caused Shephard’s death. Beyond the body near the base of the lone pine, Timothy Rourke and a detective sergeant were kneeling beside a hole in the soft loam, about a foot deep and a couple of feet square.

  Will Gentry was one of half a dozen men standing about the body and looking down at it. While Shayne hesitated above them on the edge of the pavement, Gentry waved a beefy hand at the body and said something, and turned to plod up the slope. He saw the redhead standing above him, waiting, and his square face tightened impassively as he came level with Shayne. He said, “You got anything to add to what you’ve already told me, Mike?”

  Shayne shook his head. “Is that Shephard?”

  “I guess. Have to check his fingerprints to be positive, but Rourke says he fits a newspaper picture. He’s got a motel and a rental car receipt in his pocket in the name of Fred Tucker.”

  “How long ago, Will?” Shayne pulled a crumpled pack of cigarettes from his shirt pocket and lit one.

  “Couple of hours, maybe. There’s a stab wound in his temple that looks like it would fit the conch shell sticking in McTige’s head… a twin to the one Ralph Billiter had in his coat pocket and threatened Lucy with.”

  “What did you get out of Billiter, Will? Did he confirm Lucy’s story?”

  “Mostly. He’s a nasty piece of business, and his biggest gripe is that he feels he’s been done out of a big piece of money that he somehow thinks he should have.”

  Will Gentry paused, studying Shayne with shrewd, tired eyes. “Are you holding out on me, Mike? Remember, we’ve got three dead ones already tonight.”

  Shayne said earnestly: “Will, I didn’t even hold out on you this afternoon. I swallowed Mrs. Renshaw’s story about the Syndicate, hook-line-and-sinker.” He laughed mirthlessly. “Hell, you probably already know how I threw my weight around on the Beach looking for Little Joe Hoffman in order to get a line on a Syndicate killer who’s already been dead for months.”

  “I heard about that. And you know what I figure, Mike?”

  “No. What do you figure?”

  “That it’s just the kind of stunt you might have pulled if you knew who Shephard was all the time and how much money he was worth. Just to throw me off the track,” Gentry spelled it out bitterly, “so I’d do your work for you and give you a chance to either get your hands on the money… or at least collect the reward.”

  Shayne said evenly, “You’re going to regret that after you think it over. Tell me one thing, Will.” He gripped the chief’s arm urgently as Gentry started to turn away.

  “When you questioned Ralph Billiter about the Pink Flamingo. What actually happened in that motel room?”

  “He still claims it was about the same as Lucy got it from him… without a shred of proof, of course. There was a hundred grand in that loaf of bread and he was gathering it up in handfuls off the floor when the two men walked in… McTige and Brannigan, it looks like. In the excitement, Shephard ran out, and McTige took possession of the money at gunpoint after slugging Brannigan who fell and got knocked unconscious by hitting his head. He swears the guy was alive on the floor, but passed out, when he and McTige left. And the whiskey bottle was still standing on the bureau. McTige wasn’t wearing any jacket, and he stripped the black coat off Brannigan to fill the big side pockets with bills. That’s Ralph’s story. Believe as much of it as you like.”

  “Yeh,” Shayne said slowly, “so that accounts for one hundred grand. How about the other half of Shephard’s loot?”

  “Hasn’t Will told you?” Tim Rourke came panting up the slope in time to hear the question. “From down there it looks like he had the rest of it buried under that tree, and stopped by to dig it up. There was somebody with him or somebody saw him, and that’s when he got the conch shell treatment.”

  “Is that right, Will?”

  Gentry said gruffly, “It looks like he dug something up with his hands just before he was killed. Who knows whether it was money or not?”

  “There’s the clear imprint of a briefcase in the bottom of the hole,” said Rourke defensively. “It looks plain enough to me.”

  “All right,” said Gentry bitterly, “what else about the case looks plain enough to you. Where’s that dancer?” he roared suddenly. “Sloe Burn? They tell me she handles one of those sharp conch shells in her dance like she was born with it. She’s the one I want.”

  “Is that right, Tim? Do they use conch shells in their dance?”

  “Sure. That’s part of the act. One of the things that gets the audience. You think, by God, they’ll surely rip each other to pieces on the stage before sex saves the day.”

  “You interviewed them, Tim,” Shayne put in quickly, before Gentry could stalk away. “You know exactly where they come from?”

  “Little town of Manachee. Somewhere down on the Keys.”

  “Hear that, Will? She’s just a dumb child for all her sophisticated front. Where else would she know to run if she wants to dodge the law? She’s like an animal… and she thinks like an animal. Whether she did any of these killings or not, she knows damned well she’s in bad trouble… and down on the Keys a few killings aren’t regarded too seriously.”

  “Manachee?” Gentry rubbed his blunt jaw thoughtfully, then nodded and strode back fast to his car.

  “Now then!” Shayne grabbed Rourke’s arm as soon as Gentry was out of hearing. “Fill me in on the rest of things fast. Were you with the cops in McTige’s room?”

  “Sure. I got there with Yager.”

  “What did they make out of it?”

  Rourke shrugged elaborately. “There wasn’t much for them. Brannigan’s fingerprints were on one highball glass and a few other places that indicated he’d been a guest, drinking with McTige. The inference being that McTige contacted Brannigan here in Miami to help him locate Shephard… same as he contacted you later on, after Brannigan had failed.

  “There was that conch shell driven in through the poor bastard’s temple. I guess you saw that your
self, if you found him dead. The switchboard reported several incoming calls for McTige by a woman prior to the discovery of his body,” Rourke went on reflectively. “The way I got it, a couple of those calls were taken in McTige’s room not very long before the cops were tipped off he was dead.”

  Shayne said, “That was me, Tim. One of them was from Mrs. Shephard… the other from Lucy. What about Mrs. Shephard? Have they located her?”

  “I don’t think so. Hell, Mike, you know how it is with a reporter,” Rourke ended disconsolately. “I sniff around at the edges and pick up a bit here and there. You think Sloe Burn knocked both of them off with her little conch shell?” he added eagerly.

  Shayne said, “I don’t know. I do have a strong hunch Will Gentry will pick her up in Manachee, because I’d bet a fair amount of money that’s where she’s hightailed it back to.”

  “With two hundred thousand bucks in nice green bills? The way I get it around the edges, McTige had half of it that he’d grabbed from Shephard in the motel room. Then, if Shephard dug the rest of it up from under the tree here in a briefcase… but how’d she know to meet him here?”

  “I think he asked for it,” Shayne told him. “I think the poor frightened damned fool phoned her at the Bright Spot after giving up half his money at the Pink Flamingo, and invited her to go off and share a desert island with him on the other half. That’s what I think happened, Tim. Come on. Let’s get going.” He grabbed his friend’s arm and led him at a trot past the line of official cars toward his own sedan parked at the end.

  “What’s the rush?” protested Rourke. “You gave Gentry the dope on Manachee. He’ll already have that covered by the law down there. It’s a long drive, and by the time we get there…”

  “We’re not going to Manachee.” Shayne released his arm at the front of his car, shoving him toward the left and striding around the other side to jerk the door open at the driver’s seat.

  Rourke got in quickly without any more questions. He had seen Shayne in moods like this before, and had profited by going along and seeing what happened.

  He leaned back against the cushion and got a cigarette going while Shayne made a fast U-Turn and headed back toward Miami twenty miles above the speed limit.

  “All right,” said the reporter quietly. “So, we’re not going to Manachee. Then where in hell are we going?”

  “To the airport. Before Will gets the same idea.”

  Rourke said, “Fine. You know some plane that’s taking off for a desert island about this time?”

  Shayne was leaning over the steering wheel, concentrating on his driving. “I don’t know their schedule of departures for desert islands,” he admitted. “Wish I did. But there must be something taking off at this time of night for somewhere.”

  “There usually is,” Rourke grunted sourly. “From Miami International.”

  Shayne said vaguely, “I don’t think it much matters where.” They were back across the river now, and in Miami’s northeast section. The bright lights of one of the world’s busiest airports were directly ahead of them, and Shayne braked hard to make the turn-off and swing around in front of the administration building.

  He left it parked at the curb where it said NO PARKING, and leaped out and hurried inside the vast waiting room with Rourke at his heels.

  They found her sitting demurely alone on one of the benches in the Trans-World section. She had her nice white gloves on her hands that were folded quietly in her lap, and there were two neat travelling cases on the floor on each side of her. She looked up at Michael Shayne with a pathetically weary smile as he planted himself solidly in front of her, and her gaze strayed past him to a large electric clock behind the Trans-World counter.

  She said in her precise, Mid-western voice, “I suppose you’ve come to say you’ve found my husband, Mr. Shayne. It really doesn’t matter now. My plane is leaving in ten minutes.”

  Shayne said gently, “You’re not going anywhere, Mrs. Shephard.” He looked down at the two travelling bags on either side of her, and asked, “Which one has the two hundred thousand dollars? Or, have you divided it up the way your husband did?”

  She stood up and said quietly, “Does it matter, Mr. Shayne? Poor Steven didn’t get much more enjoyment out of it than I am going to.”

  18

  LUCY HAMILTON ASKED practically, “But why did Sloe Burn hit that poor man with a whiskey bottle in the Pink Flamingo? That’s what I don’t understand. What did she gain by it?”

  Shayne grinned at her from his end of the sofa in her apartment where he was enjoying a final cognac before going home for a well-earned rest after a pretty hectic evening.

  “Sloe Burn isn’t exactly the type to stop and calculate whether she’s going to gain something or not by busting a guy with a whiskey bottle. She was just disappointed and upset and angry, that’s all. After McTige and Brannigan didn’t show up at her table in the Bright Spot when she came back after hurrying Shephard out the back, she realized he might be in danger… and his money, too, which was much more important to Sloe Burn… she went to the Pink Flamingo to see what was going on.

  “And there was Brannigan alone in the room and just coming to his senses, and Shephard had vanished and Brannigan told her about the money she had just missed out on. Her reaction was perfectly in character. She didn’t have a conch shell handy, so she sloughed him with the first thing she could get her hands on.”

  “Do you think she meant to hurt Shephard when she drove out to meet him on the trail and help him dig up the rest of the money?”

  “I’m inclined to think not, and from the report Gentry got from the sheriff in Manachee, she swears she planned to help him dig up the money and go off with him. To a desert island, or what-have-you?” Shayne grinned over the rim of his glass at his secretary on the other end of the sofa. “Would you go off to a desert island with me, angel, if I had a hundred grand?”

  She said truthfully, “I’d go off to any kind of an island with you any time, Michael, if I had to buy the tickets myself. And you know that without asking.” Her eyes twinkled at him to contradict the seriousness of her voice, and she offered an objection to his first answer:

  “She did take her horrible sharpened conch shell along with her when she went to meet Shephard after he telephoned.”

  “Just like you’d take your lipstick along to an assignation,” Shayne said easily.

  “I don’t go to assignations, Michael.”

  “Well, if you did go to an assignation. What I mean is…”

  “I know what you mean,” Lucy said indignantly. “I just don’t like the way you phrase it. And that’s when Mrs. Shephard followed her from the Bright Spot and left me on the spot with Ralph… and she found them digging up the money together, and fought Sloe Burn over the conch shell and killed her husband with it.”

  “Right. But she only got half the money, and she felt she deserved it all. She figured the conch shell might work as well a second time… and so she went after McTige.”

  “Michael!” said Lucy suddenly. “There’s a bad discrepancy in your recapitulation of all this. Don’t you remember saying that Mrs. Shephard telephoned McTige’s room just before I reached you there. Why would she telephone him if she had already killed him?”

  Shayne said, “Like almost every murderer, that’s where she made her one fatal mistake. It made me suspicious when she immediately knew it wasn’t McTige speaking over the telephone. I disguised my voice, as you know, and his voice couldn’t be very familiar to her. Yet, she knew at once it wasn’t he, and hung up. The reason she knew, of course, was because she had already killed him… and she was phoning his hotel room to establish an alibi for herself. She didn’t expect his room to answer, and wanted to leave a message to prove she had been trying to return his call. When I answered, she was flustered and hung up at once.” He finished his cognac and set the glass down on the low table in front of him.

  There was a brief silence and then Lucy said in a small voice, “You�
�re not really a very good detective, Michael.”

  “Admitted. But do we have to…?”

  “Because if you were,” she interrupted determinedly, “you would have asked me how I got Baron McTige’s telephone number so I knew where to call him tonight.”

  Shayne chuckled deep in his throat as he stood up. He moved over to Lucy’s end of the couch and leaned down to put both hands tightly on her shoulders. “Sometimes it’s best not to ask too many questions, angel.”

  He leaned farther down and put his mouth over hers before she could say anything else.