Brett Halliday - Shoot the Works

Shayne said, “Ring him and see.”

The clerk continued to shake his head with an oddly patronizing air. “Mr. Tompkins had a call which he did not answer less than five minutes ago.”

“Any idea when he will be back?”

“I’m sure I couldn’t say.” The clerk yawned delicately to indicate that he simply didn’t give a damn either.

Shayne got back in his car and drove up the Boulevard to 40th Street again. He turned off and pulled in to the curb in front of the Wallace’s apartment building behind a radio car and two other police sedans, one of which he recognized by the license plates as Chief Gentry’s personal car.

A uniformed cop stood inside the small foyer in front of the inner doors that stood ajar as Shayne walked in. He was methodically chewing a wad of gum and he regarded the detective with a jaundiced eye and remained stolidly in front of the open doors.

“You live here?”

Shayne shoved his hat back on his red hair and said, “A friend of mine does. Jim Wallace on the fourth floor.”

“Friend of Wallace’s, huh?” The cop made it sound like at least a felony. “Pretty late to be visiting.”

Shayne said, “I always visit my dead friends on the stroke of midnight. Call upstairs if you want and tell Will Gentry I’m here. Mike Shayne.”

“You’re Mike Shayne, huh? Heard a lot about you.” The patrolman continued to chew his gum ruminatively but made no move to withdraw from his strategic position in front of the entrance.

Shayne made a disgusted noise deep in his throat and turned to search for the button on the wall with Wallace’s name beneath it. The cop said good-naturedly, “No need to ring if you wanta go up. Chief said it was okay.”

Shayne turned and asked, “Why didn’t you say so?”

The man grinned amiably and said, “You didn’t ask.” He stepped aside and Shayne went in. Both elevators were above, and Shayne rang one of them down. He got in and went up to 4, and saw another policeman lounging in the hall outside of the open door to the Wallace apartment.

He recognized Shayne as the redhead approached him and motioned inside with his thumb. “Hi, Mr. Shayne. Chief said it was okay.”

Shayne went past him and stopped in the archway. Lucy and Mrs. Wallace sat side by side on the sofa as they had been when he left. Beyond them, Timothy Rourke lounged in a deep chair with one thin leg cocked up over the arm of it, his deep-set eyes quizzically bright in a face that was thin to the point of emaciation. Shayne glanced from the Daily News reporter to the other figure in the room.

Police Chief Will Gentry stood flat-footed in the center of the rug, facing the two women on the sofa. His ruddy face was impassive and he was rumbling, “… just as soon as I get a couple of things straight, Mrs. Wallace. I want you to think back to New York this morning when the airline notified you that they had a vacancy to Miami. I want you to tell me…”

He broke off as he noted the eyes of both women turned to look at Shayne. He turned his head slowly, rolling a cigar between his lips with manifest satisfaction.

“Little late getting here, aren’t you, Mike?”

Shayne shrugged. “Could that be a crack?”

“Not at all. Merely an observation, Mike.” Chief Gentry’s voice was sardonic. “It’s just a welcome relief to answer one homicide call in Miami and not find you sitting on the case when I get here.”

Shayne tugged at his left ear-lobe and said mildly, “I made it as fast as I could after Lucy phoned me.”

“So now you’re here, and now you can sit yourself down and keep quiet while I conduct an investigation for once in my life without wondering how many important clues you’re holding out on me.” He turned back to Mrs. Wallace and cleared his throat. “Now, Ma’am. This morning in New York. I was asking you…”

The telephone rang in the bedroom. He paused, and in the silence they could hear a man answering it in the other room. A few moments later a member of the Homicide Squad appeared in the doorway and his face became blank as he saw Shayne. He spoke stiffly to Gentry:

“Sergeant Harkson reporting from the Martin residence, sir. He thought you’d want to know that Mike Shayne got there ahead of him to question Martin and ran out the back door when Harkson went in the front. Mr. Martin refuses to divulge the questions he was asked by Shayne.”

Gentry said, “Thanks. Get on with it, Morris.” He sighed and glanced at Shayne, who was seating himself negligently in a chair near the archway. “We’ll have a talk afterward, Mike. The only reason you’re staying is because Mrs. Wallace has stated that you have been retained by her. That doesn’t give you any special privileges, and if I learn, by God, that you’ve been running around instructing witnesses it won’t keep you out of jail.”

He turned back to the widow. “Now, Ma’am…”

Shayne grinned across at Timothy Rourke, and the reporter closed one eyelid in a slow wink. Shayne lit a cigarette and listened inattentively while Mrs. Wallace told Gentry in detail about unexpectedly picking up an afternoon airplane reservation and cancelling her upper berth which would have put her in Miami at noon the next day.

“And you didn’t notify your husband of your changed plans?” Gentry commented sourly.

“I tried to catch him at the office after lunch. He wasn’t in, and I’d made it a person-to-person call, so I let it go until I arrived. You see, Inspector, I had absolutely no reason in the world to feel it was important or would particularly change Jim’s plans one way or the other.”

“Yet when you did arrive you claim you refrained from coming directly home for fear of surprising him… embarrassing him?”

“I’ve explained that,” Mrs. Wallace said steadily. “It was a foolish pact we made a long time ago. When we were both much younger and less sure of the sanctity of our marriage vows.”

“And you expect me to believe that while you had absolutely no suspicion at all of your husband, nevertheless, after a long and tiring train trip, you stopped off at a restaurant to eat a dinner you didn’t want just because he wasn’t home to answer the phone?” Will Gentry bore down hard on the sarcastic tone of the question, and color appeared in the widow’s cheeks and she wet her lips nervously.

Before she could reply, Shayne interposed, “She hasn’t said she expects you to believe anything, Will. She answered your question.”

“Keep out of this, Mike.”

“Not if you’re going to grill her that way. If she’s a suspect, take her down and book her and let her have a lawyer. You don’t have to answer any more questions, Mrs. Wallace.”

“I don’t really mind,” she faltered. “I want to do everything I can to help the police.”

“I think you’ve done all you can for the moment,” Shayne said shortly. “There’ll be time enough for this sort of interrogation later,” he added impatiently to Gentry. “You can see Mrs. Wallace has had a severe shock and needs rest. Why don’t you take her to your place for the night, Lucy?”

“I’ve already phoned Bob Pearce and he’s on his way over,” Lucy told him. “She felt she should be with Helen tonight.”

“I explained that you’re here on sufferance, Mike,” Gentry said angrily. “Remember, you don’t know all the facts. Like, for instance, that it looks as though Mr. Wallace was in the act of packing for a long trip when he was killed. Or did Lucy tell you that over the phone?”

Shayne shrugged. “Is it significant?”

“I think it is. Here was a man expecting his wife home at noon tomorrow… evidently preparing to skip out before she got here. How does that square with the picture she is trying to give us of a devoted husband… a perfect marital relationship?”