Killers from the Keys ms-39

by Brett Halliday

  “I don’t think so. No car in front.” Shayne moved to one side slightly, to more effectually block the interior of the cabin from the detective’s view outside.

  The reporter continued to lean forward and peer out the window, and now his hands were out of his pockets and were hidden from Shayne’s view in front of him. Long association with Rourke on many cases in the past gave Shayne an instinctive warning that the reporter was up to something which he didn’t want discussed in front of the police.

  The look of bland satisfaction on Rourke’s face when he turned back, and the fact that all three front buttons of his jacket were tightly fastened were all Shayne needed to verify his suspicion, and it didn’t really require a fleeting glance at the bare top of the bureau to tell him that Rourke was boldly walking off with the photograph that had been there.

  “I guess there’s nothing here for us,” Rourke made his voice dissatisfied as he reached Shayne’s side. “Let’s get out and let ’em lock it up.”

  They stepped out with a nod to the detective who was on duty outside, and saw Gentry coming toward them from the office.

  “Any dope I can print on the missing manager that might help you find him?” Rourke asked loudly.

  “Some you can print and some maybe you better not,” Gentry told them. “Name seems to be Peterson, and one of my men remembers a couple of Peeping Tom complaints from out here the past two months. So our man’s got a photographic darkroom fixed up in the back with pictures that look like they’ve been snapped through the windows of these cabins at night. Camera with infra-red attachment that caught poor devils when they thought they were safe in the dark inside. That could be his reason for taking off… if he had reason to believe something had happened in Number Three to bring the police around.”

  Shayne said honestly, “Could be, Will. I didn’t know Tucker’s cabin number when I got here, and I asked at the office. Told him it was police business to get it out of him fast.”

  “Impersonating an officer,” grunted Gentry sourly. “Some day, by God, Mike…”

  “On the other hand,” argued Shayne, “unless he had some idea what I was going to find in Tucker’s cabin why would he anticipate a police investigation?”

  “Who ever knows why a guy with a guilty conscience suddenly takes it on the lam? This dancer friend of Tucker’s or Renshaw’s at the Bright Spot, Mike. I think you better come along and we’ll have a talk with her.”

  “Sure, you go on with him,” urged Rourke. “I got to get back to the paper and file a story.”

  “What about Mrs. Renshaw and getting an identification?” asked Shayne as Rourke shambled away toward his car with his arms clasped tightly across his chest.

  “You think she can identify the dead man as her husband?”

  “I doubt it,” said Shayne honestly. “Your fingerprint boys say he isn’t the man who’s been occupying the cabin. But there are a lot of things we don’t know about this setup, and a positive denial from Mrs. Renshaw would be something.”

  “All right. Let’s get her down to the morgue to take a look. Where is she?”

  “Uh…” Shayne scowled and snapped his fingers. “I don’t know, Will,” he confessed. “I had Lucy take down her Miami address when she left my office.”

  “Call Lucy and find out. She’ll remember, won’t she?”

  “Oh, she’ll remember all right.” Shayne turned back. “I’ll telephone her right now from the office.”

  In the motel office, a detective put the telephone up on the counter for Shayne, and he dialed Lucy Hamilton’s apartment. He stood and let the telephone ring seven times before dropping the instrument back and going out to tell Gentry disconsolately, “Lucy doesn’t answer, Will. I don’t know how to get hold of Mrs. Renshaw.”

  “Hell of a detective you turned out to be.” Gentry ostentatiously looked at his watch. “Where is Lucy this time of night?”

  “She was at the Bright Spot with me,” Shayne explained patiently, “with Tim Rourke. When I found out there might be trouble here, I took off fast, and told Tim to see she got home. You heard him when he turned up.”

  “As I recall it, he said, ‘I sent Lucy home okay.’ So, where is she?”

  “How do I know?” Shayne pretended elaborate nonchalance though he was secretly worried. “I imagine Tim put her in a cab. She might have decided to stop off any one of a dozen places on her way home. I haven’t got any strings on her, Will.”

  “You should have,” grunted Gentry. “All right. Let’s see what we can find out at the Bright Spot.” He turned to his chauffeured car, but Shayne caught him by the arm and suggested,

  “Why don’t you ride with me and have your driver follow us a few minutes later? The kind of dive that is, they’re not going to spread out the red carpet for the chief of police.”

  “It’s outside my jurisdiction,” snapped Gentry. “Besides, I don’t want a red carpet… just information.”

  “Which you’re a hell of a lot more likely to get if you roll up unobtrusively with me, instead of in an official car.”

  Gentry said ungraciously, “I think I’m being rooked somehow,” but he told his driver, “I’m riding over to the Bright Spot with Mr. Shayne. Give us about ten minutes, and then park in front and wait for me.”

  The driver nodded and saluted. Will Gentry walked back with the redhead and got into the front seat of the sedan that was still parked directly in front of the motel office. Shayne settled his rangy body under the wheel beside the chief and started the motor.

  The parking lot at the Bright Spot appeared completely full as they pulled up in front of the entrance, and the same parking attendant who had taken care of Shayne’s car a short time previously came around to his side and shook his head firmly as the redhead cut off his motor and started to get out.

  He said, “I’m sorry, sir, but we’re full. If you’d like to come back in about an hour…”

  From the man’s manner, Shayne couldn’t tell whether he was telling the truth or whether he had been advised that Shayne was not welcome at the club any more that night.

  He unlatched the door and pushed it against the man’s body and slid out from under the wheel, and said flatly, “We’re staying. If you’ve got no parking space, leave it here until someone pulls out.”

  “I can’t do that, sir,” the attendant protested. “You’ll have to drive away…”

  Shayne started around the front of the car past him, and the attendant made the mistake of grabbing his arm and trying to pull him back. Shayne swung with the pressure and hit him behind the ear with his right fist. The parking attendant went backward and to the ground.

  On the other side of the car, Gentry said happily, “So this is the way you roll up unobtrusively, Mike, and get the red carpet treatment. Next time I’ll try it my own way.”

  Shayne strode around the front of his car and took Gentry firmly by the arm and led him under the canopy. The doorman pretended not to see them. He said grimly, “Let’s find out whether that was meant specially for us or not.”

  They found out immediately. Inside the lighted hallway, the same burly tuxedoed man who had met Shayne before came hurriedly toward them as soon as he saw them in the doorway. He blocked their way and said, “I’m sorry, Mr. Shayne. Your party has already left.”

  Shayne said, “But I’m back.” He saw two other tough-looking bouncers hurrying down the hall to flank the first one, and was conscious that Will Gentry had withdrawn slightly and stood to one side to dissociate himself with him, and he said flatly, “This isn’t a raid… yet. I don’t care what sort of exhibition you’re putting on inside. I came to talk to Sloe Burn. Send her out here or I’ll go in and find her.”

  The man in the center of the trio said smoothly, “Miss Piney is indisposed. Just go away quietly, Shayne, and…”

  Shayne hit him in the mouth with his left fist. He swung his right at the same time, and the second man ducked and caught it on his forehead. It jarred him off balance, and Shayne
swung to his left in time to see a blackjack in the hand of the third man arcing viciously toward his head. He ducked his chin and hunched his left shoulder high and caught the leaded leather with stunning force on the upper muscle of his arm.

  Then Will Gentry’s voice spoke in a conversational level behind him. “That’s enough, boys. Send Sloe Burn out here.”

  Shayne turned and blinked uncertainly at Will Gentry who stood flatfooted and unruffled with a Police Positive in his hand.

  His eyes were wild with rage, and he panted, “Let me handle this, Will. By God, I’ll…”

  “Stand back, Mike.” Gentry remained completely in control of the situation and appeared to be enjoying it. His gun menaced the trio impartially, and he told them, “You may be outside city limits, but I can have a hundred men surrounding this dump within ten minutes. Do we talk to your dancer or don’t we?”

  A new figure appeared in an open doorway beside the service bar and said coldly, “All right, you punks have caused enough trouble. Get back inside where you know how to take care of yourselves.” He was tall and urbane and unsmiling and he wore a conservative business suit. He went on earnestly to Will Gentry:

  “I’m sorry the boys didn’t recognize you, Chief. They’ll be more polite next time. On the other hand, you’ll have to admit they had a certain amount of provocation… considering the company you keep. They had orders, you see, to throw this shamus out on his ear if he showed up around here again.”

  Shayne growled a throaty epithet and started toward the owner of the Bright Spot with big fists clenched menacingly, but Gentry waved him back with his revolver and said sharply, “This time I’m handling things, Mike. We want to talk to Sloe Burn,” he went on. “About a homicide.”

  “I’d like to talk to her myself,” the tall man told him angrily. “She and her dance partner have both ducked out and left me holding the bag with a couple hundred people inside who came to see them dance. That was right after Shayne was here and she talked to him the first time.”

  “Where can I find her?”

  “If I knew, I’d tell you, Chief. They just disappeared. I’ve got a man at her place, but she hasn’t showed.”

  “What’s the address?”

  “Southwest Third Street.” He gave the address. “If she’s in trouble with the law,” he went on slowly, “I want no part of her. Minute she shows her face around here again, I’ll notify your office.”

  Gentry holstered his gun and said shortly, “See that you do if you want to stay in business. Come along, Mike.” He turned his back and trudged stolidly toward the outer door.

  Shayne hesitated briefly, and then followed him out. His sedan stood in front of the canopy where he had left it. Directly behind was Chief Gentry’s longer and heavier car with his driver at the wheel. The parking attendant was not in evidence at the moment.

  Coming up behind Gentry, Shayne said, “I didn’t know you packed a gun, Will. Thought you’d cut out that kid stuff years ago.”

  “It wasn’t kid stuff tonight. Those mugs would have taken you… oh, for God’s sake, Mike, when will you learn you can’t win by bulling in with your fists alone?”

  “I’ve done all right this far.”

  “You’ve done all right?” Gentry’s tone mocked him. Then he put a hand on his arm and his voice became more friendly. “Like tonight, Mike? Where have you got us on this thing?” He held up a broad hand to stop Shayne’s protest.

  “Wait a minute and think it over. You were holding out on me this afternoon, and I know damned well you were. I knew it this afternoon, but what the hell? You’ve pulled rabbits out of your hat before, but this time where are the rabbits? We’ve got an unidentified dead man who may be named Renshaw… passing as Fred Tucker in Miami while he hides out from syndicate hoodlums… but which I doubt. You managed to scare off the motel manager who could have identified him, and you don’t know where to locate his wife who could do likewise.

  “And you don’t know where your secretary is, who is the only person in Miami with the wife’s address. And you come out here throwing your weight around earlier in the evening, and so Sloe Burn and her dance partner take a runout powder, and nobody knows where they are. And if I hadn’t been packing a gun inside there… kid stuff or not… by God you’d be tossed out on your ear right now with all hell sapped out of you. All right. You take it from here. I’ll, by God, take it from here my own way.”

  He turned and strode toward his car, and Michael Shayne stood alone helplessly and watched him go.

  12

  It took Shayne ten minutes to drive to Lucy Hamilton’s apartment building near the Bay in the Northeast section of Miami. In the small entryway his face was deeply trenched with worry as he buzzed his customary signal on her button. The trenches deepened while he waited for her to press the button in her second-floor apartment that would release the front-door lock. When it didn’t come, he got out his key-ring and found the key she had given him long ago for such an emergency, and unlocked the outer door. As he went up the stairs, he selected the other key that opened her apartment, and had it ready in his hand when he reached her door.

  It opened onto a dark and silent apartment. He flipped the light switch beside the door and strode in, stopped just inside the long and pleasantly furnished sitting room for a comprehensive look.

  He had stopped by the apartment to pick up Lucy for dinner some four hours previously, and they had had one drink together before going out.

  The sitting room was now exactly as he remembered they had left it. The cognac bottle and an empty wineglass beside it on the low coffee table. Farther over, a tumbler half-full of water and melted ice cubes; Lucy’s own glass with the dregs of her drink on the nearer side of the table, and lying over the back of a chair where he remembered her tossing it as they went out, was a light wrap which she had decided she didn’t need at the last moment.

  With this evidence that Lucy had not been back to her apartment after she went out with him, Shayne strode across the room to the telephone and dialled a number.

  A curt voice said, “City desk,” and he said, “Tim Rourke.”

  He waited, listening to the background clatter of teletype machines and typewriters, until his friend’s voice came over the wire. “Rourke.”

  “Tim. I’m at Lucy’s place and she hasn’t come home yet.”

  Timothy Rourke chuckled evilly. “I’ve been warning you for a long time, Mike… you better marry the gal if you want her to stay home waiting for you. Listen. You know that picture I grabbed in Tucker’s cabin…?”

  “I’m worried about Lucy,” Shayne cut in. “I thought you were going to see her home.”

  “I put her in a cab at the Bright Spot,” Rourke defended himself. “Maybe she decided it was too early and stopped off some place. About that picture… come on down and I’ll show you something.”

  “You didn’t get the number of Lucy’s cab… the driver’s name or anything?”

  “For Chrissake, Mike! When did you ever take the number of a cab or the driver’s name? Act your age.”

  Shayne slammed the telephone down in a burst of futile rage. He knew Tim was right, and that added to his rage. It was foolish to worry about Lucy. She had been making her way around in Miami in cabs for a good many years, and there were dozens of reasonable explanations for her not being home yet. A lot of his anger was directed at himself for neglecting to get Mrs. Renshaw’s local address that afternoon. Will Gentry had been perfectly right in bawling him out at the Bright Spot for having got things in a mess.

  He turned away from the telephone with a shrug of his wide shoulders, crossed the room to pour cognac into the wine-glass nearly to the brim.

  No matter how many reasonable explanations there were for Lucy’s absence, he was worried, damn it. She knew he was working on a case. She knew his hurried departure from the Bright Spot meant that things were breaking. She knew he might need her for something at any moment. It wasn’t like her to make herself unavailable.r />
  Too many people were missing at the same time, he told himself angrily as he tossed off the drink. Sloe Burn and her dancing partner… probably Fred Tucker, or Renshaw (if his hunch was right about the dead man), and Mrs. Renshaw and Lucy… and he didn’t even know where to look for Baron McTige, he realized dismally.

  He emptied the glass and set it down, took one last look around the room, and then strode back to the telephone table and scrawled a note on the pad beside the instrument:

  “Check with me or Tim or Will Gentry the minute you come in.” He signed it and carried the pad back with him to drop it on the floor inside the door where Lucy couldn’t possibly fail to see it as she entered. Then he hurried out and down the stairs to his car.

  Timothy Rourke was at his desk in the City Room, tapping out copy with one finger on his battered typewriter when Shayne came up to him. The reporter swivelled around in his chair, deep-set eyes gleaming happily. “This time, 7 hit the jackpot, Mike. I knew there was something damned familiar about that picture on the bureau in the Pink Flamingo cabin. Thanks, by the way, for helping to cover up for me when I snatched it. Gentry’s going to be plenty sore at both of us.”

  “Not at me. I didn’t do anything.”

  “You knew I was grabbing it. Thanks anyhow. Look here, Mike,” Rourke exulted. He turned back to his desk and hunted through some clippings, came up with a newspaper reproduction of the same photograph of Mrs. Renshaw and the two children that had been in Tucker’s cabin.

  Only, under the newspaper cut there was a caption that read: “Wife of Illinois Embezzler Distraught and Disbelieving.”

  Shayne took the clipping from him with a baffled frown, and swiftly scanned the story, date-lined Springfield, Illinois:

  “Mrs. Steven Shephard, pictured above with her two children in a photograph taken during happier days, declared today that she did not believe her husband guilty of the crime of which he is accused.