Brett Halliday: Blue Murder

He had been here before, and he knew that in Capp’s absence the house was protected by a German shepherd, trained to slobber on its owner’s hand and to tear out anybody else’s throat. Shayne returned to his car for a.38, which he stuck in his belt. He looked for a window that would be easier to force than one of the doors. Through a slit beneath a jammed blind, he was able to see into the living room. Somebody had already shot Capp’s dog. No longer dangerous, its front legs protruding stiffly, the animal lay in an unnatural position near the middle of a white rug, which would have to be cleaned.

Shayne found a smashed bedroom window. He raised the sash and pulled himself in. He went first to the living room to look at the dog. It had been shot through the head twice at close range and must have been dead before it hit the floor.

The phone clanged. Shayne picked it up and grunted.

“Yeah?”

“Capp,” a man’s voice said. “What the hell? Do you want me to sit here and turn purple?”

“Something came up. How soon can you get over?”

The voice, already high, rose a notch. “Are you drunk? By any chance are you putting me on? Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. You call me.”

The line went dead. Shayne weighed the phone thoughtfully before dropping it back.

He looked around, trying to get the feel and smell of the room. Something had happened here besides the shooting of a dog. A chair had been knocked over. He set it on its feet. He swiveled slowly, turning through a full 360 degrees. There was a dark patch on the arm of one of the upholstered chairs. He touched it with his finger; it was damp.

Various small things were disarranged. A glass-topped coffee table was out of square. He found a spattering of fresh blood along a baseboard, on the opposite side of the room from the dead dog.

Turning on lights as he went, he looked through the house. In a utility room, a washer-dryer was humming and clicking. It was on the drying cycle, with some minutes to go, and contained only two bath towels. There was a game room, with a refrigerator full of beer, a pool table and a dart board. Capp had been showing movies here. The screen and projector were still out — a portable roll-up screen and an expensive two-turret projector, capable of handling both thirty-five and sixteen-millimeter film. There was no film in the projector, or as far as Shayne was able to discover in the next ten minutes, anywhere else in the house.

The bathroom and main bedroom got most of his attention. He was looking for some sign of a woman’s presence. Capp was unmarried, and Shayne had seen him in restaurants and nightclubs with a changing succession of girls. The girls, over the years, had remained the same age — between eighteen and twenty-two — while Capp himself was getting older. They remained slim; Capp put on jowls and his waist thickened. They never smiled. They were hardly ever heard to speak.

But if they had slept in this house, they had left few traces. Shayne found a shower cap in the bathroom, a box of Tampax, pills to combat menstrual tension. In the bedroom he turned up one black bra but no other women’s clothing, and only men’s cosmetics. There was a huge bed under a ceiling mirror. The bedspread was disarranged, as though someone had been rolling about on it after it was made.

Headlights crossed the windows and a car turned into the driveway. From a window in the unlighted kitchen, Shayne watched Frankie Capp lean out of the front window of a Cadillac and blink an electronic gadget at the garage, causing the door to slide up out of the way. He was alone in the car. He backed partway into the garage, dismounted and sidestepped past the car.

Shayne heard the trunk hatch come up. It banged shut a moment later. Capp reappeared, finished garaging the car and lowered the overhead doors.

Shayne waited inside the kitchen door. Capp came out of the garage, dangling a wet towel. He seemed exhausted. Shayne heard him sigh as he slid his key into the lock.

“Going to be O.K.,” Capp assured himself aloud, and turned the key.

Inside, the long slanting bar of the police lock slid out of its socket. Capp came in. Shayne stepped in front of him and hit him in the chest with the heel of one hand. Capp went back against the doorframe with a whoosh of surprise.

“Where’ve you been, Frankie?”

“Shayne,” Capp whispered when his breath returned.

He smelled of insect repellent instead of his usual after-shave. He made a quick sideward move, but Shayne was on him before he was out the door and whirled him back and around. Capp sawed with both arms as he went across the kitchen. He went down, falling awkwardly with his legs tangled. Shayne pulled the.38 out of his belt and slapped him with it, hard.

Capp gave a yelp of pain. His eyes rolled.

Shayne caught him as he tipped and worked the keys out of his side pocket. He sorted out the garage key first. After using it to unlock the garage, he turned on the overhead light and opened the Cadillac’s trunk.

There was nothing inside except the usual tools and the extra tire, and twelve bottles of good burgundy. The carpet was damp in places. Shayne put his head down and sniffed. There was a brackish, faintly fishy smell.

Capp had removed something from the trunk before coming into the house, and Shayne stayed in the garage until he found it — an inflatable swimming pool mattress folded in quarters. The fabric was wet and gave off the same brackish smell as the trunk carpet.

Capp had lifted himself to his elbows, and was waiting for strength before he tried anything else. His breath whistled. Having already gone through the medicine cabinet, Shayne knew what was in it. He brought a small bottle of spirits of ammonia and moved it back and forth under Capp’s nose.

Capp batted his hand away. “You scared me. Jumping out like that.”

“I’m glad your heart’s in good shape. I want you to live a long time after I put you in jail. You didn’t answer my question. Where’ve you been?”

Capp’s eyes closed down. “I haven’t answered stupid questions in years. Keep poking your nose into my business and you’ll lose it, you’ll lose it. Somebody’ll bite it off for you.”

Without hurrying, Shayne took out the.38 again and gave him another hard slap. At this point, Capp’s reflexes were very slow. He saw the gun coming but all he managed to do was blink. He even blinked slowly.

Shayne let him think for a moment, then dragged him to the bathroom, where he pushed him into the shower and turned on the cold water. Capp lay under the icy stream, bleating, while Shayne went through his wallet.

He was carrying nearly fifteen hundred dollars in cash, including three hundred-dollar bills tucked in with his driver’s license, numerous credit cards, a rack of condoms, a glossy photograph of a sex act forbidden by most religions, and finally, a ruled sheet torn from a small notebook. A penciled notation said: “M. (from LA) — Rm 14, Modern Motel. After 8.”

Shayne transferred this to his own wallet. In the shower stall, Capp was blubbering. Shayne turned off the water, pulled him out and let him have another sniff of ammonia. The force of the water had knocked off his hairpiece.

“You look better bald,” Shayne remarked. “Watch closely, Frankie. See if you can tell how I do it.”

He tore one of the hundred-dollar bills in bits and flushed them down the toilet. Capp came up on his elbows again.

“That’s money!”

“You can spare it,” Shayne assured him. “I’ll ask you once more. Where’ve you been? It doesn’t have to be true. Make up something.”

“I went swimming. It’s a hot night.”

“Good. Now are you ready for a second question? Where’s Gretchen Tucker?”