Framed in Blood ms-20

by Brett Halliday

  Slumped wearily behind the wheel, he drove slowly until he slid into the curb at the side entrance of his hotel. When he reached for the keys to turn off the ignition he felt a hard object slide against his thigh. He removed the keys and turned to look at the object on the seat.

  It was a short length of one-inch pipe with connection threads on one end. Careful not to touch the exterior, he explored with a forefinger, found one end open, and slid his finger all the way in to lift it. Scowling at its heaviness, he discovered upon close examination that the threaded end had been poured full of melted lead, as vicious a small weapon as he had ever encountered. The heavy end was covered with dried blood that contained a few hairs and bits of flesh and skin. The other end was clean. He slid his finger out and left the weapon on the seat while he got out and opened the rear car door to look inside.

  Pushed close against the back of the front seat was the Tommy gun.

  His mouth was grim when he closed the door and turned back to retrieve the short length of pipe. Balancing it carefully on his finger, he crossed the walk and dragged himself wearily up one flight of stairs to his apartment.

  He paused as he neared the door. He distinctly remembered closing it and hearing the latch click when he went out. Now, it stood partly open, and in spite of the bright sunshine outside, light from the electric fixtures in the living-room streamed through into the darkened hallway.

  Setting his teeth hard he thought of the jammed and useless automatic in his pocket, then glanced at the lethal weapon impaled on his finger. To use it on the intruder meant getting a firm hold on the clean end and destroying whatever prints might be on it and replacing them with his own.

  Weary, and with his sore muscles aching, he muttered an oath and strode angrily through the doorway.

  He looked balefully, but without surprise, at the bulky figure of Chief Will Gentry seated solidly in a deep chair.

  Shayne let his gaze travel slowly around the still-disordered room as if seeing it for the first time, then growled, “Damn it, Will, you might at least straighten up my place after you get through tearing it to pieces.”

  Chapter Twelve

  ANOTHER DEAL

  Gentry’s beefy face expressed a ludicrous combination of consternation and surprised anger as he stared steadily at Shayne’s appearance.

  “My God, Mike,” he rumbled slowly. “What have you been doing?”

  Shayne looked down at his torn and bloody clothing, put the fingers of his free left hand tenderly to the side of his head where Tiny’s blackjack had torn the top of his ear from the surrounding flesh, said, “Out doing a job for your Homicide Squad-as usual.” Stalking over to his desk he laid the pipe down carefully, extracted his finger, then glared around the room and muttered, “I hope you had a search warrant when you did this.”

  “It was like this when I came in half an hour ago. What do you mean about doing a job for Homicide?”

  “What I said,” Shayne snapped. “If you’re not responsible for this, who in hell is?”

  “You tell me,” exploded Gentry. “The same man, I suppose, who tore up your office. I thought you probably found it like this when you came back earlier, and I’ve been waiting, swearing I was going to throw you in the can for not telling me when I called you about Bert Jackson.”

  “Why wouldn’t I have told you?” Shayne demanded. “I’d like to know who it was as much as you would.”

  “Maybe it was Mrs. Jackson,” Gentry returned with heavy irony, “looking for divorce evidence you turned up against her.”

  “Might be.”

  “I’d say Mrs. Jackson is a very determined woman,” Gentry commented, settling back in his chair.

  “What sort of weapon killed the elevator operator last night?” Shayne asked.

  “A round heavy object. Not too big in diameter,” Gentry told him cautiously.

  “Something like this?” He pointed a knobby finger at the pipe.

  “Something like that,” he conceded, slowly chewing a dead cigar to the other side of his mouth.

  Shayne said, “There are a few hairs and skin stuck to the dried blood in the threads. Your smart boys can compare them with samples from the operator. You can also probably get prints from the other end that will match one of two guys you’ll find on the bay sand off the south side of the causeway near the beach.

  “One of those two,” he went on sourly, taking the jammed. 32 from his pocket and laying it on the desk beside the pipe, “has got a bullet from this lousy gun between his eyes. His partner may be dead, too. The damned gun jammed before I could shoot twice, so I’m not sure.”

  “Who are they, Mike?” Gentry asked in a dangerously low rumble. “What are you giving me?”

  “A couple of killers.” He started to shrug out of his coat, winced with pain, then stepped over to Gentry and said, “Help me off, will you? I’m afraid I’ve got a couple of cracked ribs.”

  Gentry pushed himself up and helped him ease the coat off. “Give me the rest of it fast,” he demanded gruffly. “How did you come to tangle with them?”

  “They tangled with me,” Shayne told him. He limped across to the liquor cabinet, poured four ounces of cognac into a glass, limped back, and eased one hip onto the desk.

  “Crossing the causeway in my car,” he continued. “A big black Cadillac came up behind me and forced me into the bay. A driver and a Tommy-gun artist. You can find the place by a hole in the guard fence and my car upside down in the water. I drove the Cad back,” he added casually. “It’s parked downstairs at the side entrance. Tommy gun in the back.” He took a long drink of cognac and began unbuttoning his shirt.

  “Why? What were they after?”

  Shayne’s sore face muscles rebelled at an attempt at a wry grimace. “I don’t know any more about it than I do about my office and apartment being ransacked. Help me get this shirt off, Will. I’m getting under the shower so I can take a look at what’s left of me.”

  Will Gentry eased the shirt off, one sleeve at a time, ejaculating, “My God, Mike,” when he saw the lacerations and bruises on the detective’s torso. He began easing the straps of the undershirt from one shoulder, then the other, and stripped the garment down to the waist.

  “Thanks, Will. I can manage the rest.” Shayne went stiffly through the open bedroom door and into the bathroom.

  Gentry went to the telephone and barked a number into it. He was sitting in the big chair with a highball glass at his elbow when Shayne returned fifteen minutes later wearing a pair of shorts and a patch of adhesive tape on his ear. Spreading areas of red and purple showed all around his torso, and his jaw was bruised and swollen.

  “Nothing broken as near as I can tell,” he announced cheerfully. “In fact, I’d say I’m in damned good shape for the hard life I lead.” He padded across the room barefooted and picked up his drink, again carefully lowering one hip to the desk.

  “I got in touch with the Beach police,” Gentry told him. “You must have slugged the second one harder than you thought. They’re both dead, and Peter Painter was getting ready to drag the bay for your body after checking the license plate.”

  “Hopefully?” said Shayne.

  “When I told him you were here and alive he ordered me to arrest you on a charge of double murder.”

  Shayne managed a brief grin. “Let me put on a robe first, Will.” He went into the bedroom and returned tying the belt of a faded blue-striped robe around his lean waist. “Did Painter identify the bodies?”

  “Tentatively. Much as he hated to admit it, he acknowledged that both appear to be well-known trigger boys with long records.”

  “Any known mob tie-up?”

  Gentry moved his graying head slowly from side to side. “No particular tie-up right now.” He settled back and took a drink from his glass. “I think it’s time you and I had a long informative talk,” he suggested moodily.

  Shayne said, “Sure. You start while I put on some coffee.” He slid from the desk carefully and on his wa
y to the kitchen asked, “Shall I put your name in the pot?”

  “Why not?” The chief’s tone was caustic. “The way you’re passing out information it looks like I’ll be here a long time.”

  “You haven’t done too badly for a start,” Shayne remonstrated from the kitchen, and in a couple of minutes he returned to the desk and his drink, lit a cigarette, and resumed. “How many murders do you expect me to solve in one night?”

  “There’s still Bert Jackson.”

  “Can’t your boys do anything?”

  “Let’s not bat it around too much, Mike. Who hired those two hoods to take you on the causeway?”

  “I don’t know.” Shayne took a long drink of cognac. “Before God, I don’t,” he went on angrily when Gentry shook his head in disbelief. “When I do find out it’ll probably be something that can’t be proved, so better let me take care of him in my own way.”

  “The way you took care of his two men?” Gentry rolled up his rumpled eyelids and fixed his cold gaze on Shayne’s face.

  “Isn’t it a pretty good way?” Shayne challenged.

  “Are you intimating that the man who searched your office and this place, sent the two hoods after you, also killed Bert Jackson?”

  “I wouldn’t know about that. Can you tie things up?”

  “I might,” Gentry rumbled, “if I knew what Jackson was doing here yesterday afternoon and why you threw him out.”

  “I told you about that,” Shayne reminded him. “He wanted me to get divorce evidence.”

  “I know what you told me. But that was before Ned Brooks spilled his guts and Mrs. Jackson’s next-door neighbor Mrs. Peabody gave us a pretty detailed statement on the private lives of Bert and Betty Jackson.”

  “Who’s Ned Brooks?” Shayne parried.

  “A reporter who’s been teamed up with Bert Jackson on the Tribune recently. Also, a close friend of Bert’s. It’s no use, Mike. From what Brooks and Mrs. Peabody say, Bert knew that Tim Rourke was playing his wife. He wouldn’t have come to you to get divorce evidence that would point to your best friend.”

  “My God, Will, do you think I would have made up a story like that if I’d had the faintest idea Tim was involved with Mrs. Jackson?” Shayne burst out angrily. “I swear I didn’t know.”

  Gentry took a leisurely sip of his highball, still staring straight at Shayne. “I don’t believe you did, then,” he conceded mildly. “I think you believed it was a safe lead to send us off on the wrong trail. But you know better now. I know you pumped Mrs. Peabody before Sergeant Allen got to her. And when you realized what you’d done you tipped Tim off. Where is he, Mike?”

  “Why ask me?”

  “He’s disappeared.”

  “Why would Tim do that?” marveled Shayne.

  “Because you and Ned Brooks and Mrs. Peabody have all put him right in the middle of the Jackson killing,” said Gentry, a warning weariness in his voice. “If he didn’t actually do the shooting himself, he’d better come in and tell us what he knows about it.”

  The fragrant odor of fresh coffee brought Shayne to his feet again. He padded into the kitchen and returned with a steaming cup in each hand. He set one on the end table beside Gentry’s chair and the other on the desk, and poured the remaining brandy from his glass into it. Then he settled down, stirred it, and said, “Give me what you’ve got on the Rourke angle, Will. If Tim has killed anyone, I want to know it as much as you do.”

  “We’ve got more than I like,” said Gentry gruffly. “Enough to charge him with murder right now. Add these up and see if you still think you’re justified in hiding him out.” The police chief had his fingers ready to tick off the charges when Shayne intervened to protest.

  “I haven’t said I’ve got him hidden out.”

  “I know you haven’t admitted it. One-Tim’s a friend of both the Jacksons and helped Bert get his first job on the News.”

  “Since when did friendship become a motive for murder?” Shayne cut in fiercely.

  “Two,” Gentry resumed, unperturbed, “Mrs. Jackson is a beautiful woman who didn’t get along with her husband. Tim’s been seeing her at home when her husband was at work, and not more than a month ago Bert had a big fight with his wife about that. Oh, hell, Mike, let’s face it. Mrs. Peabody’s report is pretty conclusive, and Ned Brooks says it was common knowledge among people who knew them.”

  Shayne’s face muscles were growing stiffer. His scowl pulled at the edges of the tape binding his ear. He took a drink of hot, cognac-laced coffee and said, “Even if Tim was working that side of the street, does that make him a killer? You know how Tim is about women, Will. If he made a habit of killing every husband he-”

  “There’s always a first time,” Gentry interrupted angrily. “Maybe you don’t know this, Mike. Tim was out on the town all evening, going from bar to bar trying to locate Bert Jackson. Yet we know they weren’t on speaking terms. Jackson was definitely killed by a bullet from a twenty-two target pistol. I’d feel a lot better about that if Tim hadn’t taken second place in that tournament last month.”

  “Yeah,” said Shayne broodingly. “So would I. But if you can get hold of his gun and check it against the bullet that killed Jackson-”

  “We searched his apartment when my men went there and found him missing. The pistol was missing, too.”

  “Which doesn’t necessarily mean a damned thing.”

  “Not in itself. Even the jealousy motive isn’t enough in itself. If Bert Jackson had been out looking for Tim and they happened to meet it would make more sense. But Tim was looking for Bert. Why? There’s another angle on this thing, Mike, that really makes it look bad for Tim. Do you know anything about the big story Tim’s supposed to have stolen from Jackson just prior to getting him canned from the News?”

  “No. What about it?”

  “It’s just a rumor I’ve heard around. You know how hard it is to pin a thing like that down. Something about Tim taking the credit for a story that Jackson actually dug up.”

  “I don’t believe it,” said Shayne flatly.

  “I wouldn’t either-ordinarily. But it does tie in with the other. If you steal a man’s wife, why not steal a story from him?”

  “Nuts. Nobody stole Mrs. Jackson from her husband. Have you talked to her?”

  “You know damned well I haven’t,” Gentry roared. “Some officious medico got to her first and shot her full of dope before she recovered from a dose of sleeping-pills.”

  “Is there a law against a doctor taking care of a sick patient?” Shayne interposed acidly.

  Gentry tested his coffee for temperature, took a big swallow while he ignored Shayne’s question, and resumed. “There’s another angle on this story business. I didn’t quite get the straight of it, but it seems that Brooks and Jackson were onto something pretty hot around City Hall and were getting ready to break it. Brooks didn’t admit it in so many words, but he implied that Jackson was afraid of Rourke getting onto it first and stealing it for the News. In fact, Jackson was so afraid it would leak out that he kept most of the essential details secret from even Ned Brooks, his partner on the assignment. It looks as though his decision to turn the whole story in for publication last night may have precipitated something. It might be the reason Rourke was trying so hard to locate Jackson-to prevent it. And if he did locate him in time-” The police chief paused significantly and drained his coffee cup while studying Shayne with lifted brows, noting the look of blank bewilderment on the redhead’s bruised and swollen face.

  “You’ve got a couple of things all wrong,” Shayne protested vehemently. “Who says Bert Jackson was going to turn in an important story to his paper last night?”

  “Ned Brooks. He ran into Bert near the Jackson house last night and Bert told him then. He was pretty drunk, according to Brooks, and was raving about putting one over on Rourke and wishing he could find him so he could gloat about it.”

  “And in a nice friendly way,” Shayne interjected angrily, “Brooks suggested
that Bert might go home and find Tim there with his wife.”

  “How did you know that?” Gentry demanded.

  “Never mind how I know. Damn it, Will, don’t you see that Brooks is lying all over the place for some reason of his own? I know Bert Jackson had no intention of turning in his City Hall story last night. He couldn’t have told Brooks that. I suggest that everything else Ned Brooks told you is a lie.”

  “The city editor on the Tribune corroborates Brooks’s claim,” said Gentry, unruffled.

  “Abe Linkle? What do you mean?”

  “Just that. Jackson phoned in last night while Abe was off the desk and left a message for Abe to call him back as soon as he came in. Said he had a City Hall scandal so hot it was burning his hands and he wanted to bring it in.”

  “Bert phoned from where?” said Shayne incredulously.

  “From his home. At least, he left word for Linkle to call him there. Which Abe did soon afterward. But Jackson’s phone didn’t answer. He tried again later without getting an answer, then gave up.”

  Shayne finished his coffee, slid painfully from his position on the desk, and began walking stiff-legged around the room, his head bowed in fierce concentration as he tried to digest this amazing bit of news. He tried to recall exactly what Marie Leonard claimed she had heard Bert say over the telephone in her apartment.

  Jackson had called the man he planned to blackmail and given him half an hour to call him back at his home before turning the story in. Suppose the man hadn’t called? Suppose Bert had waited at home for the call, getting drunker and more desperate, and finally decided to drop the idea of blackmail and turn the story in to his paper?

  That made sense. But Ned Brooks claimed he had met Bert before he reached home and Bert had told him of his decision then. How could Bert have reached such a decision if the half hour hadn’t elapsed? And it hadn’t-if Marie Leonard and Mrs. Peabody were correct in their timing. Marie said he left her apartment around ten, and Mrs. Peabody had seen him reach home at nine minutes after ten-just about time to have walked the distance from the Las Felice, but not enough to conclude that his blackmail scheme had fallen through.