The Body Came Back

by Brett Halliday

  “Such is fame,” marveled Shayne. “You tell Lucy I wasn’t out drinking with an actress all evening, Tim. You can vouch for me until at least two o’clock.”

  “That’s right. Well, it appeared later that she was just making up the first wild story that came into her mind. Because she was actually Al Newman’s girl-friend. Had been shacked up with him in Alabama while they cased the bank job… and she was the driver of the get-away car that snatched the bank loot and left Al to face the consequences behind her. She admitted she thought he had been killed in the chase that followed, and was completely surprised when he turned up in Miami tonight demanding his share of the money.”

  “So she killed him?”

  “She hasn’t actually admitted it, but she triggered him, all right. Funny thing. I found a confession in the room on hotel stationery signed ‘Vicky.’ But it was written in her handwriting. She tried to explain that with another fantastic story about her daughter named Vicky being there and doing the actual shooting, but she couldn’t produce any daughter or evidence of one, so that didn’t come off.”

  Shayne said gravely, “You did have yourself quite a time.”

  “That’s not half of it. Another thing I recognized about Al Newman was that he has a married sister in Miami named Duclos.”

  “Duclos?” Shayne sat up and stared at Rourke as though he couldn’t believe his ears. “Not George Duclos?” he pleaded. “Not the guy who accused me of stealing his Ford earlier in the night?”

  “What on earth, Michael?” demanded Lucy, wide-eyed and excited. “You stole a car?”

  “It was all a mistake,” he told her. “A comedy of errors. I’ll tell you about it later.”

  “Yeh. That same guy,” Tim Rourke told him. “So there was another funny thing. Just before we found the body the police had investigated an anonymous tip and found Duclos locked up in the trunk of his own car out in the Northeast section. He’d been knocked out, and said a couple of strange men had assaulted him and locked him in his own trunk.

  “They had him at Headquarters when we brought the Powers woman in, and while neither of them appeared to know the other, when he was questioned about Newman he admitted the fellow had turned up yesterday, told him he was hot and that he had to contact a woman registered at the Encanto as Mrs. Rose Hughes and collect forty grand from her. And he gave Duclos the torn half of a baggage check which he claimed he had got from the bank teller in Eureka who was in on the robbery with the gang and who admitted under torture that he and Vergie had planned all along to ditch the other two in front of the bank and take off with the loot.

  “She was frantically denying everything at that point, but a search of her handbag turned up two halves of a railroad-baggage claim check at the FEC station. It reclaimed a suitcase that held approximately forty thousand dollars of the bank money… and she broke down and admitted everything when confronted with that.”

  “How had she gotten hold of the second half of the claim check if Newman had left it with Duclos for safekeeping when he went to see her?” asked Lucy.

  “That’s another part of the whole mixed-up story,” admitted Rourke with a glance at Shayne. “You see, when Duclos first came into the picture… and with Mike’s name having been mentioned by Vergie in the beginning as her drinking companion… the cops remembered that Mike had been picked up driving Duclos’s stolen Ford earlier in the night, and that’s when Will Gentry began trying to find Mike to ask him what he knew about all this.” Rourke paused in his recital to draw a long breath and get his thoughts in order.

  “As I said, when they found the suitcase with the money in it, Vergie admitted she and the bank teller had driven straight into Montgomery that day and transferred the money into a suitcase, then she bought a ticket to Miami and they checked the suitcase on her ticket. Neither of them wholly trusting the other, they tore the claim check in two and he went back to Eureka to brazen it out, planning to meet her in Miami Saturday night at the Encanto where she would be registered as Mrs. Hughes, and they’d get the money and split it.

  “It was the bank teller, Harvey Giles, who she was expecting to turn up at her room last night. She didn’t know that Al Newman had stayed alive in Alabama, that he had got back to Giles, tortured the poor guy and got his half of the baggage check and then killed him.

  “So she was totally surprised when Duclos called her up and offered to sell half of the check for ten thousand dollars, and she claimed she went to Mike Shayne and propositioned him to accept one thousand in cash and her IOU for the other nine… to meet Duclos and pick up the check.

  “Duclos confirmed her story to a certain extent. He admitted phoning her and asking for ten thousand, and arranged to meet a certain Mr. Jones to close the deal. He claimed he did meet Mr. Jones out there where he parked his car… that Jones knocked him unconscious and stole half of the claim check and locked him up in the trunk of his own car.”

  Rourke paused and shrugged his shoulders cynically. “By that time, no one knew exactly what was what. Mike wasn’t available to answer any questions. And, actually, it didn’t seem to matter a hell of a lot.

  “We had a dead bank robber who had murdered twice. And we had his woman accomplice who’d burned him. And Duclos, who’ll draw a prison term as accessory after the fact. Under the circumstances…” He turned in his chair and addressed Shayne directly, “I think Will Gentry is inclined to doubt whether you had anything to do with the whole deal at all. There’s no positive evidence to tie you into any of it. Unless you want to come in voluntarily and explain what in hell you were doing last night.”

  Michael Shayne shook his head calmly at the question in Rourke’s voice. “It seems to me you and the cops did a good job without any assist from me at all. Let’s leave it that way.”

  “Michael Shayne!” said Lucy Hamilton fiercely. “You’re the world’s most irritating man. What were you doing all last night? Stealing cars and all.”

  Shayne grinned at her and held out his empty coffee mug. “How about a straight shot of coffee this time? And then how about whipping up some scrambled eggs… with maybe some sausage poached in wine to start, and then fried that lovely golden brown the way you do them? Sound good to you, Tim?”

  “Wonderful. About three eggs for me, Lucy.”

  “All right, you two.” She got up with an air of offended dignity which did not fool either of them. She took Shayne’s empty mug and headed for the kitchen with her firm chin uptilted. “Keep your secrets and see if I care.”

  While she was refilling Shayne’s mug, Rourke asked him suddenly, “When did you first catch on, Mike?”

  “When I saw her IOU and recognized the handwriting as the same as the note she’d given me signed Vicky.”

  Lucy Hamilton came back with another mug of coffee for him, and he caught her hand and detained her as she set it down.

  “How’d you like to go to a wedding, Lucy?”

  “What on earth are you talking about now?”

  “A big social affair on the Beach this afternoon.

  Maybe you read about it in the society section a couple of days ago. A girl named Vicky Andrews who is marrying a state senator. Her mother is a Hollywood script writer.”

  “What are you getting at, Michael? It happens I did read about it, but how on earth do you think we can get an invitation?”

  “Want to bet?” he asked her confidently.

  “No. Not when I see that gleam in your eye.”

  “Call the Encanto Hotel,” he suggested, “and ask for Miss Andrews. I’ll take it from there.”

  She hesitated, not knowing whether to take him seriously or not, and then released her hand from his and went to the telephone stand where she looked up the telephone number. Timothy Rourke sat there finishing his drink and looking mystified while Lucy dialled the hotel number and said crisply, “Miss Andrews, please.”

  She turned and held the receiver out to Shayne, “They’re ringing her.”

  He went across the room and to
ok it from her. He heard a young girl’s voice say, “Hello? Yes?”

  “Is that Vicky?” he asked.

  “Yes, it is,” she caroled. “Who is this?”

  “Could I speak to your mother, Vicky?”

  “Sure. Hey, Mom! It’s for you.” Shayne waited until an older, more resonant voice came over the wire: “Yes?”

  “Is that Carla Andrews?”

  “Why… yes.” The voice sounded doubtful. “Who is this?”

  “I’m Michael Shayne, Miss Andrews. Brett Halliday has told me…”

  “Michael Shayne?” The voice was charged with surprise and happy recognition. “My Gawd! Now my visit to Miami is complete. When I was flying in yesterday, I thought about trying to call you. I’m so happy you did.”

  Shayne said, “I want to ask you one question, Miss Andrews. This may come as a surprise, but think about it for a moment. Do you know… have you ever known… an actress named Vergie Powers?” Evidently Carla Andrews didn’t have to think very long. “Vergie? Sure. I haven’t heard from her for years. But she played some bit parts in a few of your television shows while I was writing some of the scripts. What’s with Vergie? She was a pretty good actress…”

  “She’s one hell of an actress still,” Shayne told her. “It’s a long story, Carla, which I think you’ll enjoy hearing. In the meantime… how difficult is it to get invited to Vicky’s wedding this afternoon?”

  “Michael… Shayne?” Carla’s voice was laughingly affectionate. “We’d be honored. Vicky will be delighted. Do you mean to say you really want to come?”

  “My secretary would love to.”

  “How absolutely wonderful, Mike! Lucy Hamilton! My Gawd! The lines of asinine dialogue I’ve put into her mouth. Of course, you must both come. I’ll apologize to both of you for those lousy scripts the producer made me write.”

  Laughing, Shayne told her, “We’ll be there, Carla. Until this afternoon.”

  He hung up and turned to tell Lucy, “I hope to God you’ve got something appropriate to wear to a very fancy wedding.”