Brett Halliday: Shoot the Works

“You still don’t understand,” she cried out in anguish, her voice rising closer to the hysteria she was fighting to control. “Look on the table near the door. Then you’ll understand why I called you instead of the police. His wallet was lying there open on the bed and I couldn’t help seeing the airline envelope with one end of it tucked in the little slit where Jim always carried theatre tickets. Two airplane tickets on the seven o’clock plane to South America tomorrow morning. What was Jim doing with two tickets to South America on a flight that left a few hours before he expected me back? Tell me that, Mr. Shayne. That’s why I didn’t call the police.” Her voice rose shrilly and her calm deserted her utterly. She slumped sideways against Lucy Hamilton and great, racking sobs shook her entire body.

Shayne stood very still, rubbing his angular jaw thoughtfully and looking down at the distraught widow. Lucy Hamilton held her tightly and whispered comforting words in her ear, and neither woman looked at the detective.

After a long moment of indecision, he turned back to the table Mrs. Wallace had indicated. The airline envelope was there. He picked it up and drew out the two Pan-American one-way tickets to Rio on Flight 17, departing at 7:00 a.m. the following morning. His gray eyes became bleak as he returned the tickets to the envelope and turned back, holding it in his hand.

Lucy had quieted Mrs. Wallace, so that she was no longer sobbing, but leaned supinely against the girl. Lucy’s face was strained and anxious as her dark brown eyes studied her employer’s face. “You’ve got to help her, Michael. Don’t you see…?”

He held the envelope up and said flatly, “The best way we can help her right now is to get Will Gentry up here. Unless she wants her husband’s murderer to escape. Is that what she’s driving at?”

“Of course not, Michael. I’m sure it isn’t that. What a nasty thing to say.”

Shayne shrugged and spoke as casually as though the older woman were not there. “She doesn’t want the police. What else is on her mind?”

“Don’t you see, Michael?” Lucy’s eyes were very bright. “Those tickets and the clothes laid out in the bedroom make it look as though Mr. Wallace had planned to fly to South America tomorrow, a few hours before his wife returned. Don’t you get the implication? Don’t you realize what the police and newspapers would make out of that?”

“I get the implication, all right,” Shayne agreed with a sigh. “From all the evidence, it looks as though someone put a bullet in his head to keep him from making that trip. Does Mrs. Wallace want to know who did the job… or doesn’t she? It boils down to that.”

“Mr. Shayne!” Mrs. Wallace pulled herself away from Lucy’s arm and sat up very erectly. She was dry-eyed now, and outwardly very calm. “I don’t care what the evidence says, nothing will ever convince me that Jim planned to fly to South America tomorrow morning without notifying me. Nothing, do you understand that? We’ve been married thirty years and I know Jim. He was a good man. A good, honest man.”

Shayne drew in a deep breath and tugged at his left earlobe, while his gaze fell broodingly on the airline tickets in his hand. “Then the sooner we get the police here to clear up the misunderstanding, the better it will be for everyone concerned.”

“But think of the scandal before it is cleared up. Think of… Helen. Our daughter.” Mrs. Wallace compressed her lips and swallowed hard. “She’s… in a delicate condition and she’s always been her daddy’s girl.”

“Don’t you remember I told you, Michael?” Lucy broke in straightforwardly. “Helen’s pregnant, and she’s already had two miscarriages. God knows what the news of her father’s death will do to her, but think of how she’ll feel if it appears that he was also unfaithful… that he was killed while planning to desert her mother.”

Shayne shook his red head slowly. “It’ll have to come out, Lucy. This is murder, and you can’t suppress the facts in a murder case. If Mrs. Wallace is correct and there is some innocent explanation, the faster we get to work on it, the better.”

“That’s what I hoped you’d do, Mr. Shayne. Can’t you make a private investigation… find out the truth before it all becomes distorted in newspaper headlines and ruins my daughter’s life?”

“Of course you can, Michael,” Lucy broke in impatiently. “Don’t you see that Mrs. Wallace doesn’t want you to do anything wrong? Just go ahead and solve the case without telling anyone about the airplane tickets. Isn’t that what you mean, Mrs. Wallace?”

“It’s the first thought that came to me,” she faltered. “Or, the second thought, I guess. When I first saw the tickets and realized the way they’d be construed, I wanted to tear them up. But I knew I shouldn’t. I knew they must be an important clue to Jim’s death and that it would be wrong to destroy them. But I couldn’t bear the thought of what might happen to Helen, and Jim’s unborn grandchild, if all the facts were made public before the real truth was known. And then I thought of you, Mr. Shayne. Lucy has told us about the times you’ve solved cases by yourself before the police were able to, and it didn’t seem to me there was anything wrong about calling you first. You are a detective. If you have all the clues to work on, do the police have to have them, too?”

“Nothing wrong about it,” muttered Shayne angrily. “Just a little matter of tampering with vital evidence in a homicide is all. Just my license at stake and a few years in the penitentiary is all. Good Lord, Lucy! You know…”

“I know this, Michael Shayne.” Lucy Hamilton stood erect, slim and stiff and wrathful. “I’ll never speak to you again if you give those tickets to Will Gentry. ‘Tampering with vital evidence!’ When did you get so smug and legal? What about the first time you met Phyllis and took that bloody butcher knife away from her and hid it from the police? What about the man who fell dead inside your office door and you took the piece of the baggage check out of his hand and concealed it? What about that time in New Orleans when you met me… and the brandy bottle you stole from the scene of the crime?”

Lucy’s eyes flamed and her voice became increasingly scornful as she enumerated some of his past cases. “You talk about tampering with evidence. You’ve been doing it all your life.”

“But those times were different, angel. In each one of those cases…”

“Different?” She practically spit the word at him. “I’ll tell you how they were different. Each of those times you wanted to do it. You had a personal motive, and you didn’t give one damn about legalities or losing your license or anything else. This time, you’re not involved. So, you don’t care who gets hurt. It’s just my best friend, is all. You’ll let her entire life be ruined… her baby be born dead prematurely just so you can be smug and self-righteous. Is that what you want?”

“Please, Lucy,” Mrs. Wallace cried out despairingly as the rush of angry words ceased while Lucy paused to catch her breath. “I guess Mr. Shayne is right. It’s too much to ask of him. I see it now. I hadn’t quite realized…”

“It isn’t too much for me to ask of him,” Lucy raged. “It won’t hurt him one single bit to put those tickets in his pocket and not mention them when the police come. In fact, he’d have a freer hand to find your husband’s killer if he did keep that clue to himself. You know it’s true, Michael,” she went on fiercely. “You’ve often said so to me in the past. You’re not tied down by official rules and regulations. I’ve heard you throw that in Will Gentry’s face often enough. I’ve heard you boast that Miami is your town, and that you were going out and tear it wide open with your two hands looking for a killer that you wanted to find. Well, go start tearing it apart now. Don’t just stand there.” She stamped her foot angrily.