Shoot to Kill ms-49

by Brett Halliday

  “From the look of things here she had started to pack a bag. Was that before or after Ralph came to get his gun?”

  “Pretty messy packing,” suggested Rourke. “Like she was in one hell of a hurry to get out of here.”

  “And that suggests it was after Ralph had come and gone. Or, maybe not. After I talked with her maybe she thought it over and decided to pack up and get out before he came home from the office. Then, if he came back from his interview with Ames and caught her packing a bag, he might have suspected the worst and gone berserk. But that won’t work either,” he interjected. “There’s that telephone call to me after Ralph had got his gun and gone back. She must have started packing after she called me. If Ralph then turned around and came back unexpectedly…”

  “I don’t think there was time for all that,” objected Rourke. “It must be a fair fifteen-minute drive from here to Ames’ house. Ralph says he first got there about seven-fifteen, had the argument with Ames, drove back to get his gun… and then got back there to kill him about eight o’clock. That doesn’t leave much leeway for him to have spent here.”

  “Not if that timetable checks out,” agreed Shayne. “Right at this moment we have only Ralph’s word for any of it. We don’t know he had only half an hour to get here and back to Ames’.”

  “But we do know,” argued Rourke, “that not very damned much time elapsed between her phone call and Ralph’s arrival there. You didn’t waste any time getting there, and he made it just about a minute ahead of us. Even if he drove as fast as you did… which I doubt… there wouldn’t have been more than a few minutes for him to come back and do anything here.”

  “That’s true. Let’s get out of here and wait for Griggs without touching anything.” Shayne led the way out of the bedroom. “Unless it was some other woman who phoned me pretending to be Dorothy Larson,” he went on with a scowl. “I can’t say I actually recognized her voice after having heard it only once before.”

  “What other woman?” demanded Rourke.

  “How the hell do I know what other women were involved with the Larsons? There’s blood in the bathroom and she’s missing, damn it. Just at the time when her husband was committing murder on her behalf. It all adds up to a whole lot of question marks. That’ll be Griggs now,” he added moodily at the sound of heavy footsteps on the stairway. “He’s going to love this… just when he had his murder tied up in a neat bundle and was ready to go home and get some sleep.”

  Sergeant Griggs definitely did not care for what he found in the Larson apartment. He looked at what there was to see, and he listened to what the two men told him, and he wearily went down to his car to have his driver radio in to headquarters for the technical crew to be sent back out to go over the place, and he roughly brought Ralph Larson back upstairs with him without telling him why his trip to jail was being interrupted by a visit to his home, and he shoved the young man inside the living room and he stood in the doorway and watched him and demanded, “Look all around and tell us if this is the way this place was when you ran out with your gun to kill Ames?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Ralph stood in the center of the neat room looking about dazedly. “Where’s Dottie? What… where is she?” His voice rose shrilly in sudden panic.

  “Suppose you tell us.”

  “But I don’t know. I…” He turned and went to the bedroom door and peered inside at the disarray there, shaking his head in dismay. “Dottie was always so neat,” he faltered. “She wouldn’t have…” He turned to Griggs with his face working. “Where is she? What’s happened to Dottie?”

  “Take a look in the bathroom,” said Griggs grimly, stalking up to him with out-thrust jaw. “Then you might try telling us the truth about what happened here tonight. Go on and look.” He turned the hesitant young man about and shoved him angrily toward the open bathroom door.

  Ralph Larson shambled past the bed and the bureau with its gaping drawers, and looked inside the bathroom. He turned back, his young face white and drawn, his fists clenched tightly by his side.

  “Blood all over. Is it Dot’s blood? What’s going on here?”

  “Did you kill her first?” demanded Griggs savagely. “And then go back to kill her lover? Where’s her body? What did you do with her?”

  “I didn’t do it. I loved her. That’s why I killed Ames. She was here when I went out. She tried to stop me and I remember pushing her. But I didn’t hurt her. I wouldn’t hurt her. I loved her. Don’t you understand that?”

  “Yeh,” said Griggs disgustedly. “You loved her so much you couldn’t stand the thought of her getting into bed with another man. Come on! Tell us the truth. What have you got to lose? You’ve already got one murder rap around your neck. They can only put you in the chair once. Get it out of your system. It’ll do you good. You made a clean job of it and killed them both because she was two-timing you.”

  “I didn’t,” Ralph cried thinly. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Why don’t you do something, damn you? Don’t just stand there. Get busy and find Dottie.”

  Sergeant Griggs shrugged and turned back from the bedroom door to Shayne and Rourke who were silent onlookers. “This is the kind I have to get,” he complained morosely. “You, Mike. Can you swear it was the Larson woman who called to send you out to Ames’ house?”

  “There’s no way I can swear to it. She was hysterical and practically screaming at me over the phone. She seemed to know me and about the talk I had with Mrs. Larson this evening. She called him ‘Ralph’ and she wailed that she didn’t want him arrested when I told her she should call the cops. She certainly sounded like a distraught wife trying to head her husband off from committing a murder.”

  Sergeant Griggs nodded absently. “She probably just got scared and took a run-out powder,” he muttered unconvincingly.

  Timothy Rourke grinned at him. “After cutting her wrists and bleeding all over the bathroom?”

  “How do you know she cut her wrists? How do we even know that’s her blood? Maybe she had a nosebleed. Let’s don’t jump to conclusions around here. After my boys give the place the onceover we’ll know more about what went on here. I guess I don’t need you two any more,” he went on flatly. “Why don’t you beat it? I’ve got work to do.”

  “Sure,” said Rourke easily. “You get on with your knitting, Sergeant. Mike and I’ll go get some shut-eye like you suggested awhile ago. How about it, Mike?”

  Shayne nodded and edged toward the open door into the hallway. He saw, now, that the opposite door was open about a foot, and he sensed that May was standing behind the partly opened door listening. He stepped out and waited for Rourke to follow him, with his hand on the knob to close the door behind the reporter and with the thought that it might be worthwhile talking to May without interference from the sergeant.

  But evidently May had been watching as well as listening, and waiting for him to appear, because her door swung open before Rourke reached the hall, and she swayed forward drunkenly almost into Shayne’s arms so he had to catch her to keep her from falling headlong.

  She was still barefooted, but she had changed from her former costume into a tightly-belted, pink, quilted robe with a frayed hem that struck her sturdy legs just below the knees. She was quite drunk and her well-fleshed body was heavily lax in his arms as he held her upright. Her eyes were round and unfocussed and she was smiling vaguely and she clung to him and said, “Hiya, Red, honey?” and hiccoughed loudly, and then she drew herself back with dignity and pushed him away from her, and demanded in a huskily fuzzy voice, “Whatcha doin’ in there, huh? I thought you was comin’ back to see me, Red. Wha’ she got that I haven’t got, huh?” She stood with arms akimbo and ducked her head coyly and rolled her unfocussed eyes at him.

  Rourke stood aside watching with a grin on his lean face, and Sergeant Griggs thrust his square jaw out the door and demanded of Shayne, “Friend of yours, Mike? You didn’t tell me…”

  Shayne said grimly, “
May and I are old friends and I didn’t know I was under any obligation to reveal such intimate details to you, Sergeant.”

  He put his arm gently about May and patted her shoulder beneath the quilted robe. “Where is Dottie?” he asked her quietly. “Have you seen her since I was here?”

  She blinked her eyes a couple of times and then closed them tightly and leaned against him. “Haven’ seen her,” she said in a faraway voice. “Been waitin’ for you, Red. Beltin’ down a few an’ waitin’ for you.” She snuggled up against him and slowly clasped her arms about his neck, keeping her eyes closed and turning her face up to his with full lips avidly parted. “Send ’em away, huh?” she murmured drowsily. “You take me in an’ put me to bed, huh, Red? Tuck me in good?” She pulled his head down with surprising strength, and pushed her mouth up against his, and Sergeant Griggs snorted obscenely behind them and closed the door firmly to shut out the maudlin scene.

  Shayne lifted his head from her lips and grinned past her at Rourke and said gruffly, “Help me get her inside, Tim. She’s out on her feet and she’s a pretty good hunk of woman.”

  Rourke came up on the side of her and helped support her sagging weight, and they half-dragged her inside and through the comfortably littered sitting room to the still unmade double bed beyond, where they got her decently stretched out and she immediately rolled over on her side and buried her face in the pillow and began snoring gently.

  They went out together and closed the outer door behind them just in time to witness the arrival of Griggs’ Homicide experts for the second time that evening.

  They went past them down the stairs to Shayne’s car, and got in and he said, “I’ll drive you around to the office, Tim. Got time for a drink first?”

  Rourke looked at his watch and grunted his satisfaction. “Time for half a dozen. I want to check with Griggs again and maybe have another talk with Ralph before I write my story.”

  9

  Michael Shayne stopped in front of a small bar around the corner from the newspaper office where he often met Rourke for a drink, and they went inside together, past a line of men at the bar and with a greeting for the bartender, and back to an unoccupied booth near the rear.

  A waiter came also immediately with drinks which the bartender had automatically started making as soon as they walked in, a tall, very brownish bourbon and water for the reporter, and a brimming shot-glass of cognac for Shayne with a tall glass of ice water on the side.

  Shayne nodded and said absently to the waiter, “Keep them coming, pal. As fast as we get low.” He took a cigarette out of a crumpled pack from his shirt pocket, lit it reflectively and let twin spirals of thin gray smoke trail from his nostrils. “What do you make of it, Tim?”

  “I don’t.” The gangling reporter took a long slow drink, lowering the contents of his glass halfway. “I don’t get that picture in the apartment at all, Mike. Where could Dorothy Larson be? Suppose she did take out after Ralph after phoning you, with some crazy idea of trying to stop him?”

  “After spilling blood all over the bathroom?”

  “It could be nosebleed. We still don’t even know it’s her blood. A neighbor kid might have cut his finger and she bandaged it for him,”

  “That’s right,” Shayne took a long sip of cognac and chased it down with a swallow of ice water. “We do know she never got to Ames’ house if she started there.” He paused, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. “They don’t have a second car, do they?”

  “No. That is… no, they don’t. I remember Ralph mentioning that recently. It’s one of the reasons he needed the extra money he was earning from Ames.”

  “What did he actually do for Ames? I don’t know much about the man except that his gossip column was widely syndicated and he was regarded as Miami’s Walter Winchell.”

  “What did Ralph do?” Rourke shrugged. “Sort of legman, I guess. Went around to night spots and gathered items for Ames’ column, or checked on rumors of gossip that are the stock-in-trade of a scavenger like Ames. I wouldn’t be surprised if he had a couple of others on his payroll doing the same sort of thing. God knows he earned enough from his column to afford as much help as he needed.”

  “How much?” Shayne asked with interest.

  “How much did he pay?”

  “How much do you suppose his column earned him?”

  Timothy Rourke emptied his highball glass while he considered the question. Shayne drank from his glass again, and the waiter reappeared with refills for each. “Hard to say,” Rourke admitted finally. “I never had a syndicated column but I do know something about prices. At a rough guess: Thirty to fifty thousand a year. Maybe more.”

  “Then he wasn’t what you’d call hard up?”

  “Not exactly. That would be gross, of course, but he didn’t have much overhead. Whatever pittances he handed out to boys like Ralph. And his secretary, of course. He was full-time, I understand.”

  “I was thinking,” Shayne said, “about a couple of remarks made by Mark Ames. One was to the effect that a lot of people were going to sleep more soundly tonight after they heard that Ames was dead. Would he be implying that his brother, who he quite evidently detested, was not above a spot of blackmail?”

  “Not necessarily blackmail. Wesley Ames was certainly feared and hated by a lot of people. He couldn’t help picking up stray bits of very damaging information about many celebrities during his night club rounds which might even ruin a career if printed in his column. In other words, he was certainly in a good position to do some discreet extorting, but I never heard him charged with that. I think he enjoyed the power it gave him over many important people, and it probably gave him sadistic pleasure to watch them writhe while they waited for his columns to appear and see what he printed about them.”

  “So a lot of people will sleep easier tonight after they hear the good news,” muttered Shayne.

  “Not much doubt about that. What does this have to do with Dorothy Larson’s disappearance?”

  “Damned if I know.” Shayne sipped his cognac morosely. “It’s just that the whole thing is thrown wide open by what we found at the Larson apartment. It may be pure coincidence, of course, and have nothing whatever to do with Ames’ death. But if she doesn’t turn up pretty soon with a logical explanation of where she’s been, we’ll have to assume otherwise and start looking in the cracks for things that aren’t apparent on the surface. If Ralph, for instance, was trying some private blackmail on the side… and Ames got wind of it…? Don’t you see? Maybe it wasn’t just a cut-and-dried case of sexual jealousy after all, and Ralph had some other impelling motive that no one knows about… except maybe his wife. Hell, I don’t know,” he went on disgustedly. “At this point it’s just a matter of pure theorizing. Maybe Dorothy Larson just went home to mama for the night. Does she have a mama in town?”

  “I don’t know. I suppose Griggs will check out all the relatives and close friends with Ralph.”

  “Yeh. Griggs is a careful and thorough cop.” Shayne emptied his cognac glass and scowled down into it. “There’s something bugging me,” he muttered. “Something about that locked room murder set-up that smells just slightly. But it smells, Tim. I can’t put my finger on it. It was there for me from the very beginning… even when I accepted all the surface indications. With Dorothy Larson inexplicably missing, and that bloody bathroom staring us in the face, I’m getting a stronger and stronger hunch that everything isn’t exactly as it seems.” He shrugged his wide shoulders and angrily tugged at his left ear lobe.

  Timothy Rourke sat very erect and peered across the table at him with bright, alert attention. During the years that he had followed Michael Shayne around on his cases he had learned to have a profound respect for the redhead’s hunches. “What is it?” he urged. “What is it that smells, Mike?”

  “I wish I knew. There’s something that keeps eating at the back of my mind. Something in Ames’ study that was out of place. Or something should have been there that wasn’t.” He shrugg
ed and looked up at the waiter who was approaching the booth inquiringly, and shook his red head firmly. “No more for me.” He got out his wallet and gave the man a bill, and Timothy Rourke finished his drink and sighed and said reluctantly, “I’d better get into the office myself and see what’s on tap. Are you calling it a night?”

  Shayne said, “Lucy will be sitting on the edge of her chair and chewing her fingernails waiting to hear what happened after we dashed off.”

  But after they parted outside the bar and Rourke swung around the corner to the newspaper, Shayne sat in the front seat of his car for at least sixty seconds before turning on the ignition.

  And then he didn’t drive to his hotel to satisfy his secretary’s curiosity. Instead, he stopped in front of the Miami Police Headquarters and parked in a space that was plainly marked “Reserved For Official Cars Only.” He went in a side entrance and down a hall to the left and climbed one flight of stairs and entered an open door into a small office that held a littered desk with Sergeant Griggs sitting behind it. The sergeant was studying a sheaf of reports and he glanced up with a thoroughly unwelcoming frown at the redhead who pulled up the only other chair in the office and sat down. He grunted sourly, “I thought you were bedded down for the night. That barefoot gal in the apartment across from Larson’s looked drunk enough not to mind who she slept with.”

  Shayne shook his head and said cheerfully, “You’re a liar, Sarge. You know damned well you went into her apartment to try and question her about the Larsons, and you found her quietly passed out in her own bed all by her own sweet self. What did your boys turn up after I left?”

  “Nothing,” growled Griggs wearily. “Not one damned thing that’s any good to us. No fingerprints of any significance. Nothing. Best we can make out of it… she started frenziedly packing a suitcase as though she were in a hell of a hurry and got interrupted or changed her mind for some reason. No one in the building saw her leave. No one, goddamn it, saw Ralph Larson come back this evening to get his gun and go out to kill Wesley Ames. Nobody saw nothing,” he ended disgustedly.