Brett Halliday - Mike Shayne's Torrid Twelve

“You intended to divorce him?”

The blonde shrugged. “Why not? You think I’m going to spend my whole life in a trap like this?” She stared around the room with a shudder of distaste. “He promised me the world and this is what he delivers.”

“Let’s get to last night — the night your brother-in-law was killed.”

Her eyes had returned from the survey of the room, and she was looking directly at Liddell again. “George and Bob went out drinking together. I thought they’d made it up. But the next thing I knew there were a couple of cops here asking George to go down to the morgue to identify Bob’s body. They said he had been killed by a hit-and-runner.”

She rubbed the palms of her hands up the sides of her arms. “As soon as they left, I went down to the garage. The whole right fender of the car is dented in. It wasn’t that way yesterday.”

Liddell scowled thoughtfully, scribbled a few notes. “You have a private garage?”

The blonde nodded. “Around the corner. It comes with the apartment. It’s got Two B on the door.”

Liddell transferred the information to the paper, replaced it in his jacket pocket. “I’d like to take a look at the car.”

“Why not? You’ll need the key.” The blonde got up, and headed for one of the doors off the living room. She disappeared inside. A moment later she called to him. “I can show you the garage from here. Come on in.”

Liddell drained the glass, set it back on the table. He walked to the door. It was a bedroom. The blonde stood by the window, the light outside silhouetting her full body.

She glanced at him over her shoulder, her eyes challenging. “What are you waiting for?” She watched him cross the room to where she stood. “How long does it take for a formal identification?”

Her lips looked warm and wet, he could smell her nearness. “Long enough.”

She moved closer to him, until he could feel her against his chest, her breath on his face. “I told you I was particular,” she told him huskily. She tilted her face up, her lips worked against his mouth. He slid his arm around her waist. She melted against him…

Lieutenant Vince Sullivan of Homicide sat behind his unpolished desk, his heels hooked on a half open drawer.

“Looks like that was a good tip you handed up, Johnny,” he conceded. “We just got a flash from the F car on the Horton case. The Hortons’ jalopy got its fender banged in some place. If the boys in the lab can tie it to the dead guy, we’ve got it all wrapped up.”

Liddell dug a cigarette from his pocket, tapped it on the desk. “How long will it take to get a make on the car?”

Sullivan shrugged. “By tonight for sure. They picked some paint particles out of the dead guy’s clothes. If that matches up with the paint on the car and they can match up the dirt that got shaken loose from under the fender, they’ll tie it up.”

The phone on the desk buzzed. Sullivan grunted, and dropped his feet to the floor. “Yeah?” He listened to the voice on the other end for a moment in silence, his lips tightening. Then he said, “Okay, bring him in.” He dropped the receiver on its hook, and looked at Johnny. “They’re bringing in George Horton. Want to stay?”

Liddell nodded. “Yeah. I’d like to hear his story.”

George Horton had the look of a defeated man. Graying bristles glistened on the point of his chin, and his eyes were watery, buttressed by discolored sacs. He had a petulant mouth that was drooping at the moment, a receding chin. He tried to work up an air of resentment but didn’t quite make it.

“What’s all this about?” The watery eyes hop-scotched from the man behind the desk to Liddell and back. “I’ve a right to know.”

“Just got a couple of questions to ask you, Horton,” Sullivan told him calmly. “About your brother.”

“You mean I ought to have a couple of questions to ask you about my brother. Like for instance what are you doing to get the guy who did this?”

“We think we’ve got the guy who did it,” Sullivan grunted. “You.”

The air wheezed out of Horton’s lungs, his knees sagged. “Me? You’re crazy. Why would I kill my own brother? How could I?”

Sullivan nodded to a chair. “Sit down.” He waited until Horton had slumped into it. “Your brother was heavily insured, and you’re the beneficiary. Right?”

“That was his idea. Not mine. He’s had that insurance for years. I’m down on my luck, sure — but not enough to kill my own brother for his insurance. That’s crazy.”

“You were jealous of him.”

“Why would I be jealous of Bob?” The perspiration was gleaming damply on Horton’s forehead and upper lip now. He swabbed at it with his sleeve. “Bob and me have always been good friends.”

“Maybe. But not since your wife started shining up to him.”

“Sally? She don’t mean anything by it. She’s just the friendly type—”

“Didn’t you threaten to kill them both when she told you she was going to divorce you to marry Bob?”

A nerve started ticking under the other man’s left eye. “Whoever gave you that ridiculous idea?”

Sullivan reached into his drawer, pulled out a stick of gum, and denuded it of its wrapper. “Your wife,” he said.

“No. She couldn’t have. All right, I’ll admit we’ve had some fights about Bob. But we made them all up. We were all good friends again.”

He looked from Sullivan to Liddell as though pleading for belief. “Why, that’s what we were celebrating last night. Would we be out on the town together if we were mad at each other?”

“Where was this celebration taking place?” Liddell put in.

“A half a dozen places, I guess. We ended up the night at Louis’s place down in the Village.”

The lieutenant leaned forward, consulted some notes on his desk pad. “The body was found on the side street off Louis’s place at about four-thirty this morning.” He looked up at the unshaven man. “When did you drive your car last?”

Horton licked at his lips. He tried for a moment to match the officer’s stare, but failed at it. He dropped his eyes. “I don’t know. Over the weekend, I guess.”

“Not last night?”

The unshaven man shook his head. “We didn’t need a car for pub crawling. We just went from place to place.”

Sullivan leaned back. “And you ended up the night at Louis’s place. You leave together?”

“You know we didn’t. Bob got a call. He said he had to go out for a few minutes, that he’d be right back with a big surprise.” Horton shrugged. “I waited a few minutes, then I got curious and I followed him out. He was no place around. At least, I didn’t see him.”

“You go back into Louis’s?”

Horton shook his head. “I began to feel not so good — so I headed for home. I figured maybe Bob had done the same thing.”

Sullivan looked past the man in the chair to the uniformed officer who stood by the door. “Take Horton downstairs and get his statement. Then book him.”

“For what?” Horton wanted to know.

“Suspicion of vehicular homicide.”

The officer tapped Horton on the arm. He got up, followed him out of the room. “What do you think?” Sullivan wanted to know after the door had closed behind them.

Liddell grunted, crushed out his cigarette. “Pretty thin story. He makes no attempt to explain the crushed fender although he must know we’ve already had a look at it.”

The homicide man pulled himself out of his chair, walked over to where a water cooler stood, humming to itself, and helped himself to a drink. He crushed the paper cup in his beefy fist, tossed it at the waste basket. “He’s hooked and he knows it. What’s the sense of wiggling when you’re really hooked?”