Shoot to Kill ms-49

by Brett Halliday

  “What about relatives or close friends she might have gone to?”

  “Larson says they haven’t got either one in town. The guy’s either a hell of an actor or he’s just about off his nut with worry about her. He appears to be a hundred times more concerned about her than he is about a little thing like murder,” Griggs went on bitterly. “It just hasn’t got through to him that he faces the chair for killing Ames. The young fool is proud of it.”

  “You got the M.E.’s report on Ames?” Shayne asked abruptly.

  “Yeh. It’s here some place along with the typed statements from the witnesses.” Griggs shuffled listlessly through the papers in front of him. “There’s nothing in it. What the hell do you expect? Wesley Ames is dead. Shot through the heart with a steel-jacketed thirty-eight that came out through his back and embedded in the chair. Ballistics says it was fired from the gun Larson handed you when you busted in. Death was instantaneous and occurred between half an hour and an hour before the body was examined. No unusual fingerprints in the room. Nothing. What the hell should there be? Everything was tied up in an absolutely perfect neat knot with premeditation and every other damned thing tied tight around Ralph Larson’s neck and not a single unanswered question about the case until his damned wife turns up missing with blood all over the place.”

  “Her blood?” asked Shayne interestedly. “

  “How the hell do I know?” snarled Griggs. “When we find her we’ll take a sample and find out. Just like a woman to complicate an open-and-shut case. First she incites her husband to commit murder, and then she disappears and throws a monkey-wrench into the proceedings.”

  “Yeh,” said Shayne sympathetically. “Women are like that. Jezebels, that’s what they are. I don’t see why men put up with them. It would be a simpler world without them.”

  “Simpler, maybe, but I don’t know, Mike. Where’d the kids come from?”

  “There is that,” Shayne agreed. He switched back abruptly to business. “Did you say you have the typed statements of the witnesses there?”

  “Yes. Not that there’s anything in them you haven’t already heard.”

  Shayne said, “Could I see Sutter’s statement? I want to check one point.”

  “Sutter? That lawyer from New York. It’s here.” Griggs fumbled through the papers, extracted two typed sheets stapled together and slid them across the desk to the detective.

  Shayne took it and glanced down the first page swiftly, turned to the second page and stopped near the end to read the final paragraph carefully.

  He handed it back, narrowing his eyes and rubbing his blunt chin thoughtfully. He nodded his head slowly, his eyes bleak and questioning, while Griggs watched him, puzzled but interested.

  They had never been closely associated on a case before, and Griggs had the professional policeman’s innate distrust for private detectives and their methods of operation, but he was fully aware of Shayne’s long record of brilliant successes in the solution of cases, many of which had been bungled by his own police department, and he was not one to pass up any help no matter where it came from.

  He asked gruffly, “You find anything there that I missed?”

  Shayne said, “I don’t know. I’m beginning to get an inkling of something that’s been bothering me. Let’s see Ralph Larson’s statement.”

  Silently, Griggs sorted it out from the others and passed it over.

  Again, Shayne glanced swiftly down the typed lines to a point near the end where he paused and read the confessed killer’s words carefully. He put it down in front of him and looked across at Griggs and said flatly, “I think we both missed something. Where is Ames’ body now?”

  “In the morgue for the time being. Pending funeral arrangements.”

  Shayne leaned forward and said, “If you’re a smart cop you’ll order a P. M. on him, Sergeant.”

  “A post mortem? What the hell for? We know exactly when and how he died.”

  “Do we?”

  “Are you completely nuts? You were there. You’re one of the main witnesses.”

  Shayne leaned back in his chair and half-closed his eyes.

  “We know that Ralph Larson shot him through the heart with a thirty-eight caliber bullet about sixty seconds before I broke the door down. Your medical examiner says the bullet passed through his heart and that the wound would have caused instant death. How much time elapsed between the firing of the shot and the medical examination?”

  “You were there through it all,” growled Griggs. “Say twenty minutes. Thirty at the outside. You were the one who said he was dead by the time you broke the door down and got inside.”

  Shayne said evenly, “Check my statement if you like, but I think this is what I said: That he looked pretty dead to me. But before I could check him, the radio cops got there and Griffin took over.’” He stopped to think a moment and added, “The way it was, Griffin was so busy holding a gun on me that he had Powers check to see if Ames was dead. Powers is nothing but a rookie, Griggs. If we reconstruct everything carefully, we’ll discover that Powers is the only person who touched Ames or even went close to him during all that time until the M. E. got there. I’m sure Powers is a smart lad, but I don’t believe he’s had much experience with dead bodies. No one else can testify with certainty concerning Ames’ condition.”

  “Do you mean to say, goddamn it!” exploded Griggs, “that you’re suggesting the bullet didn’t kill Ames?”

  Shayne nodded emphatically. “That’s why I want a P. M.”

  “But damn it to hell,” fumed Griggs. “A thirty-eight slug through his heart! You’ve got the M. E.’s report. What more do you want?”

  “Thirty minutes after the shooting,” Shayne reminded him. “After a completely superficial examination. There was no reason for it to be more than that,” he went on swiftly and placatingly. “All of us knew… or thought we knew… exactly how and when Ames died. The M. E. had no reason to question the evidence and make anything more than the most superficial examination. But now I think a post mortem is definitely called for.”

  “I’d be the laughing-stock of the department.”

  “Maybe. Also you might prove to be one of the smartest homicide dicks south of the Mason-Dixon line. Look,” Shayne went on persuasively. “Discounting the curious disappearance of Dorothy Larson and the half-packed bag on her bed and the bloodstains in her bathroom… which you have to admit give an aura of mystery to the whole affair… discounting that, take a look at these statements of Sutter and Larson.”

  Shayne handed the two typewritten statements back to him. “Read the end of Sutter’s statement first. The last line of the next to final paragraph. It says: ‘… I went back to my room and shut the door again.’

  “Then, first line of final paragraph: ‘… I heard a commotion downstairs and people running about…’ That is Sutter’s statement, isn’t it?”

  Griggs read the words, frowning. He nodded without looking up.

  “He was at the end of the hall with his door shut,” Shayne pointed out. “He heard Ralph force his way in downstairs and up to Ames’ study. Isn’t it reasonable to assume that Ames would also have heard the same commotion?”

  “Probably. No one says Ames didn’t. He didn’t testify on the subject.”

  “But Ralph Larson did in a sense. Read the end of his statement. He’s speaking of Ames acting so superior when he ran in waving his gun: ‘… He just sat there leaning back in his chair looking at me and not saying a word even when I waved the gun in his face…’ What does that suggest to you?” demanded Shayne.

  “A pretty cold-nerved customer. Remember, he had already sat and laughed at Ralph half an hour earlier when he threatened him.”

  “That’s what I am remembering,” Shayne said grimly. “It’s one thing to sit and laugh in the face of an unarmed man, and another thing to sit there in a chair and calmly invite a bullet in your heart without even making a move to prevent it.

  “Think about this a minute. Ra
lph Larson has stormed out the back way from the study half an hour previously threatening to get a gun and kill Ames. Ames isn’t frightened by the threats and he sits right there. Okay. Half an hour later he hears a commotion downstairs… the same one Sutter heard. Ralph shouting, the tray breaking, feet pounding up the stairs to his study. What does he do?

  “Nothing, by God. He doesn’t even get up from his chair. He sits there… silent and grinning… and gets a bullet in his heart. What does that suggest to you?”

  “That he was drugged or something?” hazarded Griggs.

  “There was that pot of coffee on his desk,” Shayne reminded him. “No one thought about analyzing it, of course. A post mortem will show it up fast enough if it was drugged. I’m just saying there appear to be some unanswered questions, Sergeant, and I think you’d be smart if you get the answers to them before this case ever comes to trial and the defense attorney starts asking for proof that his client’s bullet actually killed the man.”

  “Yeh,” Griggs said slowly. “You’ve sold me a bill of goods, Shayne. It sure as hell can’t hurt anything… and with Mrs. Larson being missing and all…”

  He nodded his bald head decisively and got up from behind the desk. “If anything comes out of it you’ll get the credit,” he added generously.

  Shayne said, “Forget the credit, Sergeant. I just want one favor. Let me know the minute you get the P. M. report. No matter what time of night.”

  “You’ll get it,” promised Griggs, and he hurried out of his office with Shayne following at a slower pace behind him.

  10

  Michael Shayne again parked his car at the curb in front of the side entrance to his hotel because he expected Lucy Hamilton to be waiting tor him upstairs and that he would drive her home a little later. He climbed the one flight of stairs that by-passed the elevator and went down the hall toward his door, instinctively getting out his key as he approached. He unlocked the door and it opened silently and the ceiling light was still on as he had left it when he dashed out a couple of hours previously. But Lucy wasn’t there to jump up and greet him with eager curiosity as he had expected. He advanced slowly into the room, noting the tray with the glasses still on it where he had set it down on the center table to answer the telephone, with the liquor bottles standing beside it where Rourke had placed them.

  He stopped and looked around uncertainly, and then a broad grin spread over his rugged features. Lucy lay curled up asleep on the shabby sofa against the right-hand wall. She had kicked off her shoes onto the floor beside the sofa and she lay on her side with her cheek nestled into the palm of her left hand, and she was breathing as sweetly and quietly and happily as a child that has been bedded down with loving care by its mother after having said its prayers in full confidence that they will be heard.

  Shayne moved over slowly and silently to stand at the head of the sofa looking down at his sleeping secretary, and his grin widened when he saw the book lying open and face down where she had dropped it on the floor. It was a copy of Michael Shayne’s Long Chance, a mystery novel which Brett Halliday had written from one of his cases, the story of his first meeting with Lucy Hamilton in New Orleans soon after his wife had died, when she had been one of the prime suspects in a murder case and long before either of them dreamed she would eventually wind up as his secretary.

  He leaned down to pick the book up to see how far she had read, and was touched to find it was open at page 169, at the point in the story where he had asked her to decide whether she wished to take a long chance with him on a wild hunch which he hoped would blow the case wide open. That was when he had called her ‘Lucile’ and she had said to him then, “I think I know you better, Michael Shayne, than I’ve ever known any man,” and her eyes had been shining and her voice confident as she said it those many years ago.

  He turned away slowly with the book in his hands, and laid it face down on the table beside the tray and poured cognac into the empty glass waiting there.

  A long time ago, and a great many things had happened since that day in Lucile Hamilton’s New Orleans apartment when she had first thrown in her lot with him. He tipped his head back and let cognac trickle down his throat and wondered if Lucy now regretted that decision she had made in New Orleans. There had been good times and bad times for each of them, and out of it all they had built an enduring relationship which was as close to marriage as either of them wanted.

  He lowered the glass and turned his head to look at Lucy again, and he saw her eyes were sleepily half-opened and fixed on him although she had not moved from her sleeping position.

  She said drowsily, “I’ve been dreaming, I guess. I was reading that book, Michael, and I got to thinking back…” Her voice trailed off and she closed her eyes again and a little half-smile of contentment came over her softly flushed features.

  Then she opened her eyes wide and pushed herself up on the sofa and fluffed her brown curls with both hands and said practically, “It was that champagne I drank at dinner. You shouldn’t have given me so much. You know my capacity.”

  “Tim Rourke was paying for it,” he reminded her. She blinked her eyes at him, and suddenly frowned and demanded, “What happened, Michael? You and Tim dashed off to try and stop his friend from shooting the columnist. I called the police as you told me, and then I sat here waiting. What happened?”

  “We were about a minute too late to head Ralph Larson off,” he told her. “Wesley Ames is dead and Ralph is in jail charged with murdering him.”

  “Oh no!” she cried instinctively. “That’s too bad. I don’t know them, of course, but it all sounds so useless.”

  Shayne nodded somberly. “Most murders are. You want a drink now, angel? You were about to have a C and C when I got that call.”

  Sitting on the edge of the sofa, Lucy shuddered as she leaned down to slip on her shoes. “That was hours ago and the champagne has all worn off now. I’d like a nice tall glass with ice cubes and cognac and filled to the top with soda. Then you can tell me all about Ralph Larson and Wesley Ames. I’ll go in the bathroom to comb my hair and put my face back on. I feel quite disheveled and practically wanton.”

  Shayne chuckled and told her, “You looked like an innocent child asleep there on the sofa.” He took the tray into the kitchen to get fresh ice cubes and open a bottle of soda, and the telephone started ringing as he returned with the tray.

  Lucy was coming out of the bathroom and Shayne stood by the table with the tray in his big hands scowling down at the instrument. “I’m afraid this isn’t our night for quiet drinks, angel. If we’re lucky that’ll be Dorothy Larson calling again.”

  “Why lucky?” asked Lucy curiously, and Shayne realized that she didn’t know about Dorothy being missing. He set the tray down and picked up the phone, but this time it was the voice of the desk clerk from downstairs:

  “There’s a man to see you, Mr. Shayne. He says it’s very important.”

  “Who is it?”

  “Mr. Sutter, he says. From New York, and he has to see you at once.”

  Shayne said, “Send him up,” and put the instrument down and scowled at Lucy and tugged at his ear lobe. “A lawyer from New York named Sutter,” he told her. “He was at the Ames house waiting to see the man when he was killed. I don’t know what he wants with me, but he’s on his way up.” He shrugged his shoulders and poured a generous dollop of cognac into a tall glass holding three ice cubes. He filled the glass to the top from the bottle of Club Soda and handed it to Lucy just as a knock sounded on the door. He told her, “I’ll get it,” and went across the room to admit the pudgy figure of Alonzo J. Sutter.

  Shayne nodded pleasantly to the New York attorney, noting that the man carried himself more erectly than before and that his round eyes behind the rimless glasses were not as bloodshot as they had been. He said, “Come in, Mr. Sutter. Perhaps you’ll join us in a drink.” He closed the door and turned to wave a big hand at Lucy who was gracefully settling herself in one of the comfortable chair
s with her glass in hand. “My secretary, Miss Hamilton,” he said formally. “This is Mr. Sutter, Lucy.”

  Sutter nodded vaguely toward Lucy and said, “I’m delighted,” in a tone which belied his words. He shook his head firmly at Shayne and said, “No drinks, please. I came here hoping and expecting to have a very private talk with you about a very confidential matter, Mr. Shayne. It is of vital importance,” he went on severely. “I made inquiries about you after you left the Ames residence, and I ascertained that you are highly regarded locally as a discreet and competent private investigator. I wish to consult you in your professional capacity,” he ended abruptly, again with a doubtful glance toward Lucy and the array of liquor bottles and glasses on the table.

  Shayne laughed easily and put his hand on the rotund attorney’s elbow and guided him toward a chair near Lucy’s. “We couldn’t be any more private,” he said cheerfully. “I assure you that Miss Hamilton is the soul of discretion.” He pushed Sutter down into the chair and turned to the table, adding, “Let me know if you change your mind about a drink.”

  He poured himself a noggin of cognac and sat down comfortably in a deep chair across from Sutter and Lucy, and said, “I though you’d gone to a hotel for the night and were catching an early plane back to New York.”

  “I am at a hotel. The Costain on Third Avenue. And I have a reservation on a plane departing at nine A.M. for New York. But I am hesitant to leave Miami with things at loose ends as it were. Earlier in the evening, when I first became aware that Mr. Ames had been shot, it appeared to me that in a sense my mission was accomplished… that I could rejoice whole-heartedly and return to New York to inform our client that all was well and that… er… he had nothing further to worry about.

  “However, afterthoughts began to worry me. The death of Mr. Ames does not necessarily settle the affair I came here to negotiate. The question now arises: Who will take possession of his private papers? What disposition of his effects will be made? Will his widow, perhaps, or his secretary, continue his syndicated column? Who will control what will be printed in the future?”