Brett Halliday: Bodies Are Where You Find Them

Painter took an involuntary backward step and assumed a pugnacious stance, but Burt Stallings remained calmly seated.

“I have reason to believe that Helen came directly to you after lunch. In her hysterical state she was obsessed with a desire to do me harm and she had misinterpreted a conversation she had overheard into something she believed could be used as a political weapon against me in the election. The facts are very plain — she contacted someone in the enemy’s camp.”

“So you think she came to me with the information — and instead of accepting it and using it against you, I kidnaped her.” Shayne was leaning slightly forward from the hips, his angry gaze riveted on Stallings’s handsome face. “You’re a Goddamned fool, Stallings.”

Stallings smiled evenly. “I believe you had perspicacity enough to recognize her so-called information for what it was, and that you seized the opportunity to hide her away for use as a lever against me. Not only do I believe that, Mr. Shayne, but I believe any jury will agree with me that the premise is sound.”

Shayne did not take his eyes from Stallings’s bland face. “And I suppose it never occurred to you, Mr. Stallings, that you could pull a dirty trick like this, have it headlined in the papers that Marsh and I had conspired to kidnap your daughter, and turn the tide in your favor at the polls.” His big fist crushed against his palm in a resounding blow. “Get out.”

“Very well.” Burt Stallings got up. He smiled, revealing a row of even and glistening white teeth.

Peter Painter came forward like a fighting cock with spurs and wings strutted. “I told Stallings he was wasting his time coming here. I’ve given him my word to wait until noon tomorrow to file a criminal information against you, but that’s the deadline.”

Shayne turned away from them and shakily refilled his glass with cognac. He kept his back turned until the door closed behind them. Then he strode to the bedroom door and kicked it open.

It struck Timothy Rourke on the side of the head as he crouched behind it with his ear to the crack. He rocked back on his heels and cursed Shayne, then groggily picked up his bottle of Scotch from the floor and followed the detective into the living-room, his lean face wreathed in a mocking smile.

“This,” he exulted, “gets better and better. How do you manage to wiggle yourself into spots like this?”

Shayne slumped into a chair and glared at the exuberant reporter. “Do you know Helen Stallings?”

“Hell, no. How’d I know a dame like that?”

“Your rag has run enough pictures of her on the society page,” Shayne growled. “Would you recognize her?”

“My deah young man—” Rourke grimaced and made a circle with left thumb and forefinger, holding it up to his eye like a lorgnette “—I nevah read the society page. Nevah! With so many of the nouveaux riches cluttering up the pages—”

Shayne said, “Go to hell,” and threw his empty glass at the grinning Irishman. “You’re going to start now,” he directed. “Go in there and take a good look at the corpse. Then beat it up to the News morgue and see if she’s Helen Stallings.”

“I don’t see why that’s necessary. It seems plain enough to me.”

“We’ve got to know.” Shayne was firm. “Then we can start figuring—”

“I don’t see what good it’ll do you,” Rourke interrupted cheerily. “If that is her — and I’m willing to lay a hundred to one it is — it’s a cinch you can’t deliver her home safe and sound by tomorrow noon. S-a-a-y, did you by any chance send that note to Stallings, taking advantage of a situation that dropped into your lap?”

“Get the hell out of here before I throw you out,” Shayne fumed. “I’ve got enough on my mind without thinking up answers to your pseudo wisecracks.” His eyes wandered to the bedroom door and stared thoughtfully. He held up his hand, detaining Rourke as he started for the door. “Wait — hold it. Before you go we’ve got to figure a way to get rid of the body.”

“We?” Rourke gasped. “Sweet grandmother! You don’t expect me—”

Shayne nodded, holding him with a shrewd, level gaze.

“To hell with that. You do your own figuring. There are certain limits I’ll go for a pal, but I draw the line—”

“Shut up and let me think,” Shayne demanded impatiently. He whirled about and strode up and down the room, muttering.

“The killer must be getting pretty nervous right now. He doesn’t know where the hell she is. He figured he had me sewed up tight when he sent you and Gentry up here — and he must have sent that note to Stallings at about the same time to clinch the kidnaping and murder on me. Now he doesn’t know what to think. He must know that both Gentry and Stallings have been here and gone away without finding the body. His natural thought will be that I found her before you and Gentry came, carried her upstairs to our living apartment, or hid her here in the building some place. He can’t tip his hand by forcing a further search until he knows where she is. He’ll be watching for me to make a break with the body.”

Shayne stopped suddenly before Rourke. Rourke backed away from the burning heat of his eyes.

“Tim, you’ve got to get her out of here,” he said slowly.

“Me? Nothing doing.” He took another backward step, holding up his hand as though to fend the detective off. “I’m not running any dead wagon.”

“You’re in this up to your neck already,” Shayne reminded him grimly. “Gentry knows you stayed behind when he left. If it comes out there was a body here and you connived with me to keep the fact covered up—”

Rourke shuddered and groaned dismally. “You do have the sweetest way of putting things. All right, I might as well be hung for one thing as another. How’ll we work it? What the hell will we do with her? Dump her in the bay?”

“Nothing like that.” Shayne resumed his pacing, rumpling his coarse red hair. “We want to keep her in storage where we can produce her as evidence later.”

Rourke brightened perceptibly. “That’s an idea, Mike. You got any close butcher friends?”

Shayne ignored him. “How about that fishing-place of yours below Coconut Grove?”

“Now look here, Mike, if you think I’m going to have her found on my—”

“That’s just the place,” Shayne interrupted. “No one ever goes there. Better not use your car, though,” he decided. “After you collect the pix from the News, rent a U-Drive-It and come back here.”

Rourke started for the door, saying, “Well, so long, Mike. It was nice to’ve known you.”

Shayne reached out two long arms and caught his shoulders. Whirling him around, he continued. “I’ll leave the back door unlocked, and you can come up the fire escape. I’ll decoy any watcher away — and give him the slip — meet you out along the Tamiami Trail, say at the Wildcat.”

Timothy Rourke sighed lugubriously. “If I get a headline out of this I’ll earn it. Maybe I’ll have a chance to write up some firsthand prison stuff. I’ve always had a hankering for that.” He went to the door with a sickly smile that tried to be jaunty, waved his hand, and went out.

Shayne went to the bedroom and switched on the light. He bent over the girl’s body and gently drew her hand down from her face, studying the contorted features and impressing them on his memory.

He went out and got a clean glass from the kitchen, came back, and pressed the tips of her fingers against the glass, hesitated, then pulled down the sheet and spread to get at the other hand which was edged under her body.

He sucked in his breath swiftly and audibly when he saw the tiny beaded bag clenched between her fingers. It was very small and dainty, such as one might carry to a formal evening affair. He closed his eyes and visualized the scene that afternoon when she had come stumbling up the corridor to him. She did not have such a bag in her hand then.